The Coronavirus pandemic has already shaken the world to its core and exposed how ill-prepared we are to handle a virus outbreak. The profit-based healthcare system has been exposed as not being helpful at all, as more than 106 million people all over the world have been infected and more than 2.3 million people have died.
On top of that, WHO has warned that “something much more dangerous than COVID” is coming.
Future viruses will have a much higher fatality rate
Chief of WHO Emergencies, Michael Ryan has said that while Coronavirus is spreading really fast, its fatality is extremely low as compared to the pandemics of the past and future. For example, the Black Plague that had killed almost half of Europe in the 14th century, had a fatality rate ranging from 15%-100%.
He warns that future virus outbreaks could be much more lethal, and even the current mutations of COVID-19 have shown that the mutated version is much more dangerous in every way.
“Coronavirus is very transmissible, and it kills people… its current case fatality (rate) is reasonably low in comparison to other emerging diseases. We need to get ready for something that may even be more severe in the future.”
This is why the world is not ready
WHO senior advisor Bruce Aylward has been saying that the global response to COVID has shown that we are just not ready to handle a more dangerous outbreak. Public ignorance and the way many people refused to practice basic safety like wearing a mask and practicing social distancing – are just scary hints of what could happen if a much more lethal virus outbreak happened.
“We are into second and third waves of this virus and we are still not prepared to deal with and manage those. So while we are better prepared… we are not fully prepared for this one, let alone the next one.”
Another foreboding fact is people’s reluctance to trust the COVID vaccine as most people around the world refuse to get vaccinated. So many myths and rumors have circulated around the vaccine, and it’s become hard to separate fact from fiction.
Here, we debunk some of the common myths about the COVID vaccine.
Featured Image Courtesy: Wion