London Daily

Focus on the big picture.
Tuesday, Oct 14, 2025

WHO Warns Against Complacency After Coronavirus Vaccine Rollout

WHO Warns Against Complacency After Coronavirus Vaccine Rollout

The WHO warned against complacency and what it said was an erroneous belief that because vaccines are on the near-horizon, the crisis is over.

The roll-out of vaccines to fight the Covid-19 pandemic will not by itself eliminate the deadly coronavirus, the World Health Organization said on Friday.

The WHO warned against complacency and what it said was an erroneous belief that because vaccines are on the near-horizon, the crisis is over.

"Vaccines do not equal zero Covid," WHO emergencies director Michael Ryan told a virtual news conference.

"Vaccines and vaccination will add a major, major, powerful tool to the tool kit that we have. But by themselves, they will not do the job."

Britain on Wednesday became the first Western country to approve a vaccine for general use, piling pressure on other countries to follow suit swiftly.

WHO director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said that progress on vaccines "gives us all a lift and we can now start to see the light at the end of the tunnel.

"However, WHO is concerned that there is a growing perception that the pandemic is over.

"Many places are witnessing very high transmission of the virus, which is putting enormous pressure on hospitals, intensive care units and health workers."

Global coronavirus infections passed 65 million on Friday.

The novel coronavirus has killed at least 1.5 million people since the outbreak emerged in China last December, according to a tally from official sources compiled by AFP.

 'Life and death'


"The pandemic still has a long a way to run and decisions made by leaders and citizens in the coming days will determine both the course of the virus in the short term and when this pandemic will ultimately end," said Tedros.

Maria Van Kerkhove, the WHO's Covid-19 technical lead, added that these decisions "can mean life and death for us, life and death for our family".

According to the WHO's overview of candidate vaccines, 51 are currently being tested on humans, 13 of which have reached final-stage mass testing.

A further 163 candidate vaccines are being developed in laboratories with a view to eventual human trials.

"I have seen vaccines transform the world and change the course of epidemics, and I fully expect that these vaccines and the ones that are to come will do that," Ryan said.

But he warned that people needed to recognise that the vaccine "will not be with everyone early next year".

Health workers, the elderly and people with underlying conditions will get priority -- a choice that "will take a lot of the sorrow out of this pandemic. But it will not, by itself, end transmission," said Ryan.

Tedros said he was happy to be vaccinated on camera to help promote public confidence, but would not jump the queue to do so.

"I would be happy to do it" but "I have to make sure it's my turn", he said.

Newsletter

Related Articles

0:00
0:00
Close
EU Deploys New Biometric Entry/Exit System: What Non-EU Travelers Must Know
Australian Prime Minister’s Private Number Exposed Through AI Contact Scraper
Ex-Microsoft Engineer Confirms Famous Windows XP Key Was Leaked Corporate License, Not a Hack
China’s lesson for the US: it takes more than chips to win the AI race
Australia Faces Demographic Risk as Fertility Falls to Record Low
California County Reinstates Mask Mandate in Health Facilities as Respiratory Illness Risk Rises
Israel and Hamas Agree to First Phase of Trump-Brokered Gaza Truce, Hostages to Be Freed
French Political Turmoil Elevates Marine Le Pen as Rassemblement National Poised for Power
China Unveils Sweeping Rare Earth Export Controls to Shield ‘National Security’
The Davos Set in Decline: Why the World Economic Forum’s Power Must Be Challenged
France: Less Than a Month After His Appointment, the New French Prime Minister Resigns
Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán stated that Hungary will not adopt the euro because the European Union is falling apart.
Sarah Mullally Becomes First Woman Appointed Archbishop of Canterbury
Mayor in western Germany in intensive care after stabbing
Australian government pays Deloitte nearly half a million dollars for a report built on fabricated quotes, fake citations, and AI-generated nonsense.
US Prosecutors Gained Legal Approval to Hack Telegram Servers
Macron Faces Intensifying Pressure to Resign or Trigger New Elections Amid France’s Political Turmoil
Standard Chartered Names Roberto Hoornweg as Sole Head of Corporate & Investment Banking
UK Asylum Housing Firm Faces Backlash Over £187 Million Profits and Poor Living Conditions
UK Police Crack Major Gang in Smuggling of up to 40,000 Stolen Phones to China
BYD’s UK Sales Soar Nearly Nine-Fold, Making Britain Its Biggest Market Outside China
Trump Proposes Farm Bailout from Tariff Revenues Amid Backlash from Other Industries
FIFA Accuses Malaysia of Forging Citizenship Documents, Suspends Seven Footballers
Latvia to Bar Tourist and Occasional Buses to Russia and Belarus Until 2026
A Dollar Coin Featuring Trump’s Portrait Expected to Be Issued Next Year
Australia Orders X to Block Murder Videos, Citing Online Safety and Public Exposure
Three Scientists Awarded Nobel Prize in Medicine for Discovery of Immune Self-Tolerance Mechanism
OpenAI and AMD Forge Landmark AI-Chip Alliance with Equity Option
Munich Airport Reopens After Second Drone Shutdown
France Names New Government Amid Political Crisis
Trump Stands Firm in Shutdown Showdown and Declares War on Drug Cartels — Turning Crisis into Opportunity
Surge of U.S. Billionaires Transforms London’s Peninsula Apartments into Ultra-Luxury Stronghold
Pro Europe and Anti-War Babiš Poised to Return to Power After Czech Parliamentary Vote
Jeff Bezos Calls AI Surge a ‘Good’ Bubble, Urges Focus on Lasting Innovation
Japan’s Ruling Party Chooses Sanae Takaichi, Clearing Path to First Female Prime Minister
Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs Sentenced to Fifty Months in Prison Following Prostitution Conviction
Taylor Swift’s ‘Showgirl’ Launch Extends Billion-Dollar Empire
Trump Administration Launches “TrumpRx” Plan to Enable Direct Drug Sales at Deep Discounts
Trump Announces Intention to Impose 100 Percent Tariff on Foreign-Made Films
Altman Says GPT-5 Already Outpaces Him, Warns AI Could Automate 40% of Work
Singapore and Hong Kong Vie to Dominate Asia’s Rising Gold Trade
Trump Organization Teams with Saudi Developer on $1 Billion Trump Plaza in Jeddah
Manhattan Sees Surge in Office-to-Housing Conversions, Highest Since 2008
Switzerland and U.S. Issue Joint Assurance Against Currency Manipulation
Electronic Arts to Be Taken Private in Historic $55 Billion Buyout
Thomas Jacob Sanford Named as Suspect in Deadly Michigan Church Shooting and Arson
Russian Research Vessel 'Yantar' Tracked Mapping Europe’s Subsea Cables, Raising Security Alarms
New York Man Arrested After On-Air Confession to 2017 Parents’ Murders
U.S. Defense Chief Orders Sudden Summit of Hundreds of Generals and Admirals
Global Cruise Industry Posts Dramatic Comeback with 34.6 Million Passengers in 2024
×