Omicron may reach millions before vaccines, but race to vaccinate isn’t over

Southampton (UK), Jan 14 The pandemic is accelerating. It’s estimated that there could be 3 billion new infections globally over the next three months thanks to the highly infectious omicron variant.

Large outbreaks are ongoing across Europe and North America and cases are also rising in many other countries. Omicron has now reached most corners of the world including where COVID vaccine coverage is low. The African continent, for example, has recently reported a significant rise in daily reported new cases.

The global vaccine roll-out is continuing apace too, with hundreds of millions of doses manufactured each month. The World Health Organisation’s target is for 70% of the population in every country to be vaccinated by the middle of 2022. However, with omicron spreading so quickly and widely, there’s a real chance that the virus will reach many before a vaccine does. Across Africa, 85% of people have yet to receive a single vaccine dose.