WHO warns that booster shots could prolong the pandemic

As the world tries to get booster rates up to deal with Omicron, the World Health Organisation has warned it could cause issues.

The WHO warned Wednesday that rich countries cannot use boosters to escape the coronavirus.

“No country can boost its way out of the pandemic,” said the World Health Organisation’s Secretary General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus on Wednesday.

“Blanket booster programs are likely to prolong the Covid-19 pandemic, rather than ending it, by diverting supply to countries that already have high levels of vaccination coverage, giving the virus more opportunity to spread and mutate.” Nor should a third dose of vaccine be seen as carte blanche, he added. “Boosters cannot be seen as a ticket to go ahead with planned celebrations”.

France has started vaccinating children over five and China plunged a city into a strict lockdown on Wednesday as governments scrambled to contain fresh virus surges driven by the Omicron variant.

World Health Organisation (WHO) Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus.

The UK meanwhile approved Pfizer’s jab for children aged five and up, while the World Health Organisation warned that getting booster shots did not mean tossing aside safety measures at end-of-year celebrations.

But as some poorer countries struggle to get initial vaccine campaigns off the ground, Israel said citizens over the age of 60 and medical teams would be eligible for a fourth Covid vaccine shot.

“The world will follow in our footsteps,” Prime Minister Naftali Bennett tweeted.

The threat of the highly-mutated Omicron variant is looming large over the end of year holidays, promoting governments to roll out new restrictions and urge citizens to get vaccinated.

The latest data suggest Omicron does not cause more severe illness than previous variants, including Delta, but scientists warn it could cause more deaths if soaring infection numbers overwhelm health systems.

France on Wednesday opened vaccinations to children aged between five and 11, as it warned daily infections rates could hit 100,000 by year end up from a weekly average of 54,000 daily cases.

Israel is now offering a fourth shot to some residents.

“There is one certainty. Omicron is very contagious, it will spread, and no country will be spared,” said Health Minister Olivier Veran, emphasising that vaccines have an effect on the variant.

The UK is also seeing an alarming rise in new cases and on Wednesday approved Pfizer’s Covid jab for kids aged five to 11.

The country clocked another daily new cases record - 106,122 - as it announced it would buy millions of Covid pills, and also cut the isolation period for infected people from 10 to seven days with negative tests.

The government signed deals to acquire 4.25 million courses of Pfizer’s ritonavir and US rival Merck/MSD’s molnupiravir antiviral drugs, which have raised hope for an easy at-home treatment.

Finland also revealed plans to expand its vaccination program to children aged between five and 12, a day after announcing bars must close at 9pm on Christmas Eve to fight record Covid infection levels.

But in China, only 52 new reported infections were enough for authorities to impose a stringent lockdown on more than 13 million people in the northern city of Xi’an.

From midnight on Thursday, residents must stay at home except to buy necessities once every two days or in emergencies. Travel to and from Xi’an is heavily monitored by health authorities and non-essential businesses will close.

People lining up to be tested for the Covid-19 coronavirus in Xi'an, in China's northern Shaanxi province.

The move comes as China pursues its rigorous zero-Covid policy before next year’s Winter Olympics in Beijing and is reminiscent of the world’s first pandemic lockdown in the central city of Wuhan in January 2020.

Spain’s government said Wednesday it will re-impose the mandatory wearing of face masks outdoors at an unspecified future date.

The all-too-familiar restrictions threatened festivities across the world, even as governments speedily rolled out booster campaigns.

But WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus warned that third doses did not translate into a carte blanche for celebrations - and could exacerbate vaccine inequity.

“No country can boost its way out of the pandemic,” he said Wednesday. “Blanket booster programs are likely to prolong the Covid-19 pandemic, rather than ending it, by diverting supply to countries that already have high levels of vaccination coverage, giving the virus more opportunity to spread and mutate.”

Across Africa, countries are lagging behind Western nations in getting populations inoculated as the continent faces fresh surges of it own.

But in Nigeria, around a million AstraZeneca Covid doses donated by developed countries were destroyed Wednesday after they expired.

“When these vaccines were offered to us, we knew that they had a short shelf-life,” said Faisal Shuaib of the National Primary Health Care Development Agency.

“But we were living in an environment where the supply of Covid-19 vaccines was very scarce,” he added, blaming rich countries for hoarding the jabs and donating them only when they had almost expired.