WHO Chief Warns Of Virulent Covid Variant, Know Scenarios How Pandemic Can Evolve This Year

Even as the WHO said the severity of disease is mostly expected to wane over time due to greater public immunity, it noted that a more dangerous variant could be lurking round the corner

Syringe inserted into a vaccine vial (Getty image)

New Delhi: With Covid-19 rearing its ugly head across Europe and China once again, the World Health Organisation (WHO) on Wednesday released an updated plan for pandemic highlighting three possible scenarios for how the pandemic will evolve this year.

Even as the WHO said the severity of disease caused by the virus is mostly expected to wane over time due to greater public immunity, the global health body noted that a more dangerous variant of concern than Omicron could be lurking round the corner.

What are the three scenarios of Covid-19 evolving this year?

Severity of disease to reduce

"Based on what we know now, the most likely scenario is that the Covid-19 virus continues to evolve, but the severity of disease it causes reduces over time as immunity increases due to vaccination and infection," Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said during a briefing according to Reuters.

However, it warned that periodic spikes in cases and deaths may happen with waning immunity that may call for periodic boosting for vulnerable populations.

Less severe or more virulent variants may emerge

The other potential scenarios are either less severe variants will emerge and boosters or new formulations of vaccines will not be necessary, or a more virulent variant will emerge and protection from prior vaccination or infection will wane rapidly.

The latest Strategic Preparedness, Readiness and Response Plan laid out the strategic adjustments that every country needs to adopt for addressing the mechanisms of SARS-CoV-2 transmission, lessen the impact of Covid, and end the global emergency.

This is the third Strategic Preparedness, Readiness and Response Plan released by WHO and will likely be its last, Tedros said.

The first report was released in February 2020, at the start of the pandemic.