EIR LEAD EDITORIAL FOR TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 30, 2021

Omicron Crisis Shows Why We Need a World Health System, as Helga Zepp-LaRouche Called For

Nov. 29, 2021 (EIRNS)—The World Health Organization met urgently today to issue a new technical brief for its 194 member states on the Omicron variant of the coronavirus, as the number of countries around the world with reported cases continued to grow. The WHO stated that it will still be two weeks or so until sufficient evidence is gathered to reach solid conclusions about Omicron, but as of now what can be said is that “there could be future surges of COVID-19, which could have severe consequences, depending on a number of factors including where surges may take place. The overall global risk related to the new VOC [variant of concern] Omicron is assessed as very high,” the UN health agency said.

More bluntly, WHO Director General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told the meeting of members: “Omicron demonstrates just why the world needs a new accord on pandemics.” Also addressing the meeting, Richard Hatchett, a scientist and CEO of the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI), a foundation that funds vaccine development, said that Omicron’s emergence had fulfilled predictions that transmission of the virus in areas with low vaccination rates would speed its evolution. “The inequity that has characterized the global response has now come home to roost,” he told the talks, noting that Botswana and South Africa had fully vaccinated less than a quarter of their populations.

Full vaccination of every nation’s population is urgently necessary, but it is only one component of a planetary defense against the current pandemic, and possible future ones, that must now be put in place in short order. That requires an international crash program to build modern health systems in every country, along with the full-set human and physical infrastructure needed to make that possible—from energy, to water, to food, to modern transport, to the education and training of skilled professionals. This is the core of the proposal first issued by Schiller Institute founder and Chairwoman Helga Zepp-LaRouche when the pandemic first emerged, and has since been taken up by the Committee for the Coincidence of Opposites and its co-founder, former U.S. Surgeon General Dr. Joycelyn Elders.

Over a dozen countries are now reporting Omicron cases, and three countries—Japan, Israel and Morocco—have shut down all international travel into their countries. The U.S. today joined most European nations in putting in place controversial prohibitions of air travel from Southern African nations. Omicron’s existence was first reported less than a week ago, on Wednesday, Nov. 24.