1 million Covid deaths in 2022, says WHO, ‘a tragic milestone’
- World Health Organization boss Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus questioned if the world was really on top of the virus
- He urged governments to do more to vaccinate more people, with one third of the planet’s population still unvaccinated
The World Health Organization announced Thursday that a million people had died from Covid-19 in 2022, calling it a “tragic milestone” when all the tools existed to prevent deaths.
Nearly 6.45 million deaths have been reported to the WHO since the virus was first detected in China in late 2019.
But WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus questioned whether the world was really on top of the pandemic, this far in.
“This week, we crossed the tragic milestone of one million reported deaths so far this year,” he told a press conference.
“We cannot say we are learning to live with Covid-19 when one million people have died with Covid-19 this year alone, when we are two-and-a-half years into the pandemic and have all the tools necessary to prevent these deaths.
“We ask all governments to strengthen their efforts to vaccinate all health workers, older people and others at the highest risk, on the way to 70 per cent vaccine coverage for the whole population.”