Nations need to work together to push back Covid-19 in 2022

The chief of the World Health Organisation says he is hopeful the pandemic can be ended – on one quite big condition, writes Chris Stevenson

A health worker administers a Covid-19 jab (AP)

There is some optimism from director-general of the World Health Organisation (WHO), Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, who says he is hopeful the Covid-19 pandemic will be defeated in 2022, provided countries work together to contain its spread.

Noting that we have many more tools and treatments to deal with Covid than we did when the pandemic started, the WHO chief has said: “With all these learnings and capacities, the opportunity to turn this pandemic around for good is in our grasp. If we do so, we will save lives, relieve the burden on stretched health systems, and give respite to the legions of health workers who have toiled tirelessly and sacrificed so much for two years. We will get our lives back, allow children to return to school, and people to work.”

All good points. Adhanom Ghebreyesus is right to focus on the need to work together. He also decried “narrow nationalism and vaccine hoarding” in the statement for the new year. Vaccine nationalism is something that a number of our writers have pointed out this year – as well as a great number of readers in letters. “The longer inequity continues, the higher the risks of the virus evolving in ways we can’t prevent or predict,” the statement adds. “If we end inequity, we end the pandemic.”

Here’s hoping that as we begin 2022, this message is taken seriously by leaders and governments across the world – particularly in the west – and all parts of the political spectrum. If that is done, we can be optimistic. As Adhanom Ghebreyesus states: “We now know this virus well.” Let's hope it is the last year we are so well acquainted.

Yours,

Chris Stevenson

Premium Editor