The World Health Organization's (WHO) director-general suggested that people postpone Christmas gatherings as Omicron continues to spread on Monday.
During a Geneva news conference, Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus stated that "an event canceled is better than a life canceled."
"We are all fed up with this pandemic. We all desire time with our friends and family, and everybody wants to return to normalcy. The quickest way to do this is for all of us, as leaders and individuals, to make the difficult choices necessary to safeguard ourselves and others."
"In some cases, that will mean cancelling or delaying events," he continued. "However, a cancelled event is preferable to a cancelled existence. It is preferable to cancel now and grieve later than to rejoice now and mourn later. None of us wants to be back here in a year's time."
The WHO director-general said that "consistent evidence" indicates that the latest version of concern, Omicron, is spreading "significantly faster" than the Delta type. Omicron's community transmission doubles every 1.5 to three days, according to available data.
Dr. Soumya Swaminathan, the WHO's chief scientist, also cautioned that it is too early to declare Omicron a milder version and noted that preliminary investigations indicate it is more resistant to the vaccines presently being used to combat the pandemic.
Current information indicates that people who have been vaccinated or recovered with COVID-19 are more likely to be infected or reinfected with Omicron.
Currently, only a few countries have adopted measures to limit transmission during the 2020 Christmas season, such as caps on private gatherings.
The Netherlands, on the other hand, is an exception. Non-essential businesses were closed earlier this week until mid-January, and residents are limited to two guests, increasing to four between December 24 and 26, as well as on New Year's Eve.
Ending the pandemic by 2022 is possible, Ghebreyesus said, but the world must first "must end inequity by insuring 70 percent of the population of every country is vaccinated by the middle of next year."
He lamented that some countries are using vaccine doses to administer boosters to youngsters while the elderly in other countries have not had their first shot.
According to Our World in Data, 48% of the world's population has been fully vaccinated. Still, high and upper-middle-income countries have advanced at a much faster rate, with about 70% of their population fully vaccinated, compared to 33% in lower-middle-income countries and just 3.7 percent in low-income countries.
Only 8.4 percent of the African continent's population is fully immunized at the moment.
Over 5.3 million people have died due to the epidemic - 3.3 million by 2021, " More deaths than from HIV, malaria, and tuberculosis combined in 2020," Ghebreyesus added.
Each week, the virus claims over 50,000 lives.
