Vaccines: WHO gave details of when coronavirus cases start to drop

The decline in cases and deaths due to covid-19 Thanks to vaccinations, they will not arrive until countries have vaccinated about 50% of their population, said the chief scientist of the World Health Organization (WHO), India Soumya Swaminathan.

Commenting on the situation in his country, which, although it is one of the largest producers of anticovid vaccines and one of the most numerous people vaccinated living a serious wave of infections, the expert underlined that “it is only when the coverage of 50% of the population is reached, that one begins to see significant reductions of the cases”.

“The decrease in deaths may be even earlier, since priority populations are covered first,” the scientist said, referring to the elderly and chronically ill.

“A country like India has 1,000 million people to be vaccinated, so it will not happen overnight,” he noted of a country that has administered more than 150 million doses, but in which only 2% of the population received the two necessary to be fully immunized.

For now, in India and other high transmission countries, the preventive measures that have prevailed throughout the pandemic (mask, personal estrangement, etc.) are still needed, stressed Swaminathan, “also in the centers of vaccination, to prevent them from being sources of transmission ”.

Only two countries have so far more than 50% of fully immunized citizens (Seychelles and Israel, with around 60%), while the closest to achieving this percentage are the United Arab Emirates (38%), Chile ( 35%), Bahrain (32%), and the United States (31%), according to vaccination figures provided by their health networks.

Globally, more than 1.1 billion doses have been administered to date, with China being the country that has vaccinated the most (275 million), followed by the United States (245 million) and India.

Knowing that it is necessary to vaccinate at least 70% of the population to achieve group immunity and that most covid vaccines require two doses, approximately 10 billion doses must be administered on the planet to ensure the end. of the pandemic covid-19.