translated from Spanish: WHO believes it is unlikely for a country to achieve collective immunity soon

The World Health Organization (WHO) believes it is highly unlikely that any country will soon reach the level of immunity required to control covid-19 transmission, not even those that had severe outbreaks and where the virus circulated intensely.” Studies indicate that more than 80% of a community needs to be immunized to stop transmission, but serological data reveal that no country has acquired such natural immunity,” said the agency’s director of health emergencies, Mike Ryan, at the WHO annual meeting.” A substantial portion of the world’s population remains susceptible to infection,” said the expert coordinating the global pandemic fight from WHO. Ryan argued that in the face of the epidemiological situation and the problems of extending vaccination to all who need it, it is essential that prevention measures, including social distance, the use of masks and good ventilation, be maintained, but also to continue with tests and contact tracing.” Relaxing measures prematurely contributed to the outbreaks we saw in 2020 and the first quarter of this year,” he said, recalling that allowing the virus to continue circulating uncontrolled raises the risk of more dangerous variants. WHO believes that the global situation remains “fragile and volatile” and that there is a sub-situation of covid-19 cases and deaths in many parts of the world. Country data suggest that 40% of symptomatic people experience mild covid-19, another 40% moderate disease, but the remaining 20% suffer from severe-critical infection. Of the latter, 16% die today, representing an improvement in the fight against the virus, as at first mortality between serious cases was up to 40%. Ryan also indicated that despite WHO’s expectations of ending the pandemic, the organization remains deeply under-financed. Of the $1.7 billion he asked for in February to carry out his plan to address the acute phase of the pandemic, he has received only 576 million and pledges of 410 million more.

Original source in Spanish