“The Big One”: WHO warns that future pandemics could be worse than coronavirus – National

The coronavirus pandemic has killed more than 1.7 million people, destroyed economies and pushed hospitals to the brink of collapse.

But the World Health Organization (WHO) warned that despite the severity, the pandemic is not “necessarily the big one.”

At a press conference on Monday, the head of the WHO emergency program, Dr Mark Ryan, said that if there is anything to be drawn from this pandemic it is that “we need to prepare for something that may be more serious in the future “.

“This pandemic has been very severe, it has spread around the world extremely quickly and it has affected every corner of this planet,” Ryan said. “But this is not necessarily the big deal. This virus is highly transmissible and kills people, it has deprived so many people of loved ones. But its current fatality rate is reasonably low compared to other emerging diseases. It’s a wake-up call. “

READ MORE: The next pandemic will be “more damaging” if COVID-19 lessons are not learned, according to the panel

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He added that the threats will continue and, as our planet is so “fragile”, we need to learn from the coronavirus pandemic and “get together”.

Ryan also said there is a possibility of never eradicating COVID-19, despite the recent release of safe vaccines.

“The likely scenario is that the virus will become another endemic virus that will remain a bit of a threat, but a very low-level threat in the context of an effective global vaccination program,” he said.

“It remains to be seen to what extent vaccines are taken, to what extent we have reached a level of coverage that can allow us to eliminate them,” he said. “The existence of a vaccine, even with high efficacy, is no guarantee of eliminating or eradicating an infectious disease,” he said.

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The warning comes more than two weeks after the British government announced a highly contagious coronavirus variant.

On December 26, Canada reported its first two cases of a coronavirus variant found in the United Kingdom. The variant has also spread to Australia, Japan and several European countries.

The WHO previously said that newly authorized vaccines, such as Pfizer and Moderna, should continue to work against the new coronavirus variant.

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