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America suffered the greatest impact of the pandemic: it registered almost half of the deaths from Covid worldwide

The Pan American Health Organization (PAHO), assured this Tuesday that the American countries suffered a disproportionate impact of the coronavirus, revealing that on the continent there was almost half of the deaths caused by disease. This is despite the fact that it is only home to just over 13% of the world’s population.

Globally, at least six million people have died so far. more than 2.6 million of them in the American continent. More than 148 million people have fallen ill with COVID-19 in the Americas, and according to some studies, some survivors will feel the consequences on their health throughout their lives.

“This is one enormous tragedy”, said the director of PAHO, Carissa Etienne, two days before two years are commemorated since the World Health Organization declared the global pandemic. “Its effects will be felt for years to come”.

Etienne’s statements at PAHO’s weekly virtual conference from its headquarters in Washington take place at a time when many of the world’s countries are registering a drop in the number of deaths and patients, after a peak caused by the variant omicron after the end of year festivities.

In the Americas, where two of the countries that have felt the effects of the pandemic the most (the United States and Brazil) are located, the number of COVID-19 cases decreased by 26% in the last week, with 1.1 million new reported infections. Deaths also fell almost 19% to 18,000.

These declines have led some governments to choose to relax the use of masks, remove social distancing restrictions and relax some other health measures that they had imposed to stop and control infections. Others have not yet done so, but are considering it.

PAHO warned, however, that the reductions in testing may not accurately reflect the actual number of cases in the countries. In the Caribbean, where there are countries that have not yet achieved high vaccination rates due to the resistance of the population to get immunized, cases increased by 2.2%.

In the first two months of 2022, 63% of the cases registered worldwide were in the Americas, according to PAHO. The deaths were more than 220,000. Among the countries most affected by omicron are Brazil, the United States and Chile, which had records of new infections.

“It’s too soon to let your guard down”, said Etienne after explaining that the pandemic remains unpredictable and new variants could emerge. “Public health measures are being abandoned in many parts of our region. Some, but not all countries, are making that decision based on risk assessments or health data,” he warned.

The director of PAHO, the organization that establishes public health guidelines in the region, said that covid-19 is likely to stay and that is why it is necessary to learn to live with the virus and adapt quickly to changes. For this reason, she indicated, we must also prepare to readjust the public health recommendations if the cases rise again.

The pandemic also exposed the existing imbalances in the region, where developed countries such as the United States coexist with others that are not, such as Haiti, one of the poorest in the world. Those inequalities were reflected in access to vaccines.

In Latin America and the Caribbean, there are still 248 million people who have not received even one dose of the COVID-19 vaccine. Only 14 countries have achieved complete vaccination of 70% of their population.

“I am afraid that there is no return to normality at this time in that we need to continue with some of the measures that have proven to be effective,” Etienne said. “In particular, we need to increase vaccination coverage.”

With AP information

DD

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