‘We are completely blind’: WHO chief on Covid-19 transmission amid 4th wave fears

As the fears of an impending fourth wave of the pandemic are rising, World Health Organisation (WHO) Director-General Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus on Tuesday pushed the countries to do proper Covid-19 testing and surveillance in this crucial situation.

Urging the countries to keep a watch over the growing Covid-19 infections, the WHO chief said that we are “blind” to how fast the virus is spreading across the globe because of falling testing rates in many countries.

While addressing a press conference at the UN agency’s headquarters in Geneva, Dr Ghebreyesus said, “As many countries reduce testing, WHO is receiving less and less information about transmission and sequencing. This makes us increasingly blind to patterns of transmission and evolution.”

Warning the public further, WHO’s emergency committee on Covid-19 has also said that the virus still remains a major public health danger and that countries should not lower their guard at such a crucial moment during the global pandemic.

The World Health Organisation has further said that the Covid-19 pandemic is far from over, as many countries have drastically reduced their rate of testing and have dropped their guard. The agency has further said that the circulation of the virus still remains high.

This comes just as fears of the fourth wave of the pandemic are taking over the world, with many countries witnessing a spike in infections in the past few weeks. The number of Covid-19 cases has also seen an increase in India, just as states decided to remove some of the restrictions.

Meanwhile, China is witnessing one of its worst outbreaks of the virus yet since 2020, when the Covid-19 pandemic first started to spread. Strict restrictions and lockdowns have been placed in Shanghai and Beijing, with people not allowed to step outside their houses.

Many countries have dropped their rate of Covid-19 testing after the considerably milder third wave of the pandemic, led by the Omicron variant. Many administrations have also removed the mask mandate for the public and reopened public places for citizens.