‘Beyond tragic’: WHO laments 500,000 Covid death toll since Omicron

GENEVA FEB 9 (HINDUSTAN TIMES)- The World Health Organization lamented Tuesday that half a million Covid-19 deaths had been recorded since the Omicron variant was discovered, calling the toll “beyond tragic”.

WHO’s incident manager Abdi Mahamud said that 130 million cases and 500,000 deaths had been recorded globally since Omicron was declared a variant of concern in late November.

“In the age of effective vaccines, half a million people dying, it’s really something. While everyone was saying Omicron is milder, (they) missed the point that half a million people have died since this was detected. It’s beyond tragic.” Mahamud told a live interaction on WHO’s social media channels. .Maria Kerkhove, WHO’s technical lead on Covid-19, said the sheer number of known Omicron cases was “astounding”, while the true number would be much higher.

“It makes the previous peaks look almost flat and we’re still in the middle of this pandemic,” she said.