The pandemic is accelerating. It’s estimated that there could be 3 billion new infections globally over the next three months thanks to the highly infectious omicron variant.

Large outbreaks are ongoing across Europe and North America and cases are also rising in many other countries. Omicron has now reached most corners of the world – including where COVID vaccine coverage is low. The African continent, for example, has recently reported a significant rise in daily reported new cases.

The global vaccine roll-out is continuing apace too, with hundreds of millions of doses manufactured each month. The World Health Organization’s target is for 70% of the population in every country to be vaccinated by the middle of 2022. However, with omicron spreading so quickly and widely, there’s a real chance that the virus will reach many before a vaccine does. Across Africa, 85% of people have yet to receive a single vaccine dose.

Given this, and that some research suggests omicron appears to cause less severe disease than earlier variants, is there now less of a need to get people vaccinated? Some might see it this way. But the answer is: no. Even though omicron means that plenty of people will now catch the virus before they’re vaccinated, the worldwide vaccine roll-out needs to press on. Here’s why.

Read more at The Conversation:
https://theconversation.com/omicron-may-reach-millions-before-vaccines-do-but-that-doesnt-mean-race-to-vaccinate-the-world-is-over-174492

Image Credits: Legnan Koula/EPA-EFE