Failure to vaccinate everyone will give rise to new variants: UN chief

Giving a clarion call to world leaders to make 2022 a "true moment of recovery", UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on Monday said that the Covid-19 pandemic has to be confronted with equity and fairness, cautioning that failure to vaccinate every person will give rise to new variants that will bring daily life and economies to a grinding halt. "If we fail to vaccinate every person, we give rise to new variants that spread across borders and bring daily life and economies to a grinding halt," he said, even as the latest Covid-19 variant Omicron spreads at a lightening speed across the world, exponentially increasing infection rates and threatening to burden the healthcare infrastructure in nations. Guterres emphasised the need for pharmaceutical companies to stand in solidarity with developing countries by sharing licenses, know-how and technology so "we can all find a way out of this pandemic." Even if all developed countries kept their very important promise to drastically reduce emissions by 2030, the problem is that with all developing countries achieving their present Nationally Determined Contributions, especially emerging economies, global emissions would still be too high to keep the 1.5 degree goal within reach," he said.