At least 90% of global population has acquired immunity against Covid-19 – WHO

After all the concern that poorer countries were not benefitting from the Covid-19 vaccination campaign as they should have been, the World Health Organisation has announced that at least 90% of the global population has acquired immunity against Covid-19, through infection or vaccination. The announcement came yesterday from WHO’s director general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus who is nonetheless not  content. He warns of “gaps in surveillance, testing, sequencing and vaccination for COVID-19” which he says continue to create “the perfect conditions for a new variant of concern to emerge”. Mr Ghebreyesus, it has to be remembered, was very concerned that poorer countries where vaccine uptake was low and slow would see their populations decimated by the virus. This did not happened. Here in Portugal transmission of Covid-19 is well under the RT of 1 (the border line at which point transmission ‘takes off’). The average number of daily cases remains stable, reports public health institute INSA (which earlier this winter was mirroring Mr Ghebreyesus’ angst about potentially worse illness to come).