world health organisations socalled covax effort are falling woefully short of increasing the global supply to a level that is needed to stomp out the virussimultaneously another group of 18 republican lawmakers have written a separate letter to biden against such a proposal arguing that the us would lose vital research and development capacity needed to prepare for future pandemics and other health security threats happened but that would have been detrimental because our approach is for our citizens to not live in false security and false safety he said the next step for scientists in south africa and elsewhere to decipher what the genetic changes seen in omicron mean early data suggests the variant is more contagious posing an increased infection risk for people who have already had the virus or been vaccinated compared to previous variants but is also milder in its symptoms world health organization who chief tedros adhanom ghebreyesus said on wednesday