GENEVA: Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the Director-General of the World Health Organization (WHO), expressed optimism that the Covid-19 pandemic will be defeated by 2022 if countries work together to restrict its spread. In a new year statement, Ghebreyesus warned against "narrow nationalism and vaccine hoarding," according to the BBC. His remarks come two years after the World Health Organization was initially notified of cases of an unknown pneumonia strain in China.

The continuing disparity in vaccination distribution, he cautioned, increased the chance of the virus developing. "Narrow nationalism and vaccine hoarding by some countries have harmed equity and produced ideal conditions for the formation of the Omicron variety, and the longer inequity persists, the greater the chance of the virus changing in ways we can't predict," he added. "If we can eliminate disparity, we can eliminate the pandemic," he concluded.

India has seen a significant increase in daily Covid instances, with 22,775 cases reported in only 24 hours. In the same time period, 406 deaths were reported, bringing the total to 4,81,486. The active caseload, on the other hand, increased to 1,04,781, accounting for 0.30 percent of the country's total positive cases.

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