The World Health Organization (WHO) warned on Monday that the coronavirus pandemic is far from over despite high vaccination rates in some countries. This warning comes days after the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said that fully vaccinated people can engage in most pre-pandemic activities without a mask or social distancing in the federal agency's updated guidance.
"There is a huge disconnect growing, where in some countries with the highest vaccination rates, there appears to be a mindset that the pandemic is over, while others are experiencing huge waves of infection," WHO Director-General Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said in his opening remarks at the agency's press briefing on Monday.
"The situation in a number of countries continues to be very concerning," Tedros continued. "Even some places that have previously done very well at containing COVID-19 are seeing dramatic increases in cases, hospitalisations and death. New variants of concern, fragile health systems, reduced implementation of public health measures and supply shortages of oxygen, dexamethasone and vaccines are all compounding the current situation."
"The pandemic is a long way from over," Tedros warned. "It will not be over anywhere until it's over everywhere."
The WHO's warning comes just four days after the CDC updated its public health guidance for fully vaccinated people, saying they do not need to wear a mask in more indoor and outdoor settings and no longer need to stay six feet apart from others. The CDC's update has already led to retailers like Target
People are considered fully vaccinated by CDC guidelines two weeks after they received the second dose of the Pfizer
Since the start of the year, the U.S. has been accelerating its vaccination campaign to a current seven-day moving average of about 1.7 million doses per day, according to the CDC, with 59.7% of the U.S. adult population receiving at least one dose; that rate is below the nation's peak of INFORMATION. Nearly 123 million Americans are fully vaccinated. With that vaccination rate, new coronavirus cases have declined in the U.S. to about 31,500 daily new infections on average, according to CDC data.
Other countries, however, are experiencing major outbreaks as the Biden administration moves to vaccinate as many Americans as possible. For comparison, India--which is experiencing one of the worst recorded waves of coronavirus infection by a country to date--is reported 386,000 new infections on Sunday, according to data from John Hopkins University. The nation is also suffering from a massive death rate due to the overwhelming outbreak, with more than 4,100 deaths reported on Sunday. However, experts believe that India's death rate is currently much higher.
President Joe Biden has recently announced that he supports emergency waivers of vaccine intellectual property protections, so that countries can produce their own generic supply of COVID vaccines to help better combat the global outbreak. However, this decision has been met with criticism from pharmaceutical companies and would need more global support to actually take action.
On Monday, the Biden administration announced plans to send at least 20 million doses of the coronavirus vaccines developed by Pfizer-BioNTech, Moderna and Johnson & Johnson aboard by June to aid in other nations' vaccination efforts.
This new shipment plans follows the White House's decision to send 60 million doses of its supply of the vaccine developed by AstraZeneca
