- BBC News Mundo
Despite several countries already administering coronavirus vaccines, the world will not achieve herd immunity in 2021, the World Health Organization (WHO) warned on Monday.
"We are not going to achieve any level of herd immunity in 2021" because the rollout of vaccines "takes time," said WHO chief scientist Soumya Swaminathan at a virtual press conference from Geneva.
"It takes time to scale up production of doses, not just in millions, but we're talking about billions here," he also said, and asked people to have "a little patience."
Swaminathan noted that eventually "the vaccines will arrive" and that "they will go to all countries." But she reminded everyone that in the meantime, "there are measures that work." The scientist urged people to continue taking precautions such as physical distancing, handwashing, and wearing masks to combat the pandemic—precautions that will be necessary for "at least the rest of this year."
Vaccination progress
More than a year has passed since China reported the first cases of a new type of pneumonia to the WHO, which weeks later would be named Covid-19.
Since then and until this Monday, 90,604,773 cases of the disease have been registered on all continents of the planet, and 1,939,488 people have died worldwide.
At least 40 countries have already begun vaccinating their population against COVID-19.
In Latin America, Mexico, Chile, Costa Rica, and Argentina are already administering the vaccine.
So far, Israel is the most advanced country in the general immunization of its inhabitants .
But in its last conference of 2020, the WHO also said that despite vaccination, eradicating Covid-19 "is a very high bar to clear."
"The existence of a vaccine, even a highly effective one, is no guarantee of eliminating or eradicating an infectious disease," said Dr. Mark Ryan, head of the WHO's emergencies program, in late December.
From: https://www.bbc.com/mundo/noticias-55626058