A report released by the Switzerland-based organization, headed by founder and executive chairman Klaus Schwab, detailed the grim tidings ahead of the annual elite winter gathering of CEOs and world leaders in the ski resort of Davos.
The pandemic and its economic and societal impact still pose a “critical threat” to the world, the report said. Big differences between rich and poor nations’ access to vaccines mean their economies are recovering at uneven rates, which could widen social divisions and heighten geopolitical tensions.
Attacks on critical infrastructure, misinformation, fraud and digital safety in 2022 will impact public trust in digital systems and increase costs for all stakeholders, the report said.
“We’re at the point now where cyberthreats are growing faster than our ability to effectively prevent and manage them,” said Carolina Klint, a risk management leader at Marsh, whose parent company Marsh McLennan co-authored the report with Zurich Insurance Group and SK Group.
The most immediate consequence of increased space activity is a higher risk of collision between near-Earth infrastructure and space objects, which could affect the orbits upon which key systems on Earth rely, damage valuable space equipment, or spark international tensions in a realm with few governance structures.
Growing militarization of space also risks an escalation of geopolitical tensions, particularly as space powers fail to collaborate on new rules to govern the realm, the report concludes.
The environment remains the biggest long-term worry for all who responded to the survey.
The planet’s health over the next decade is the dominant concern, according to survey respondents, who cited failure to act on climate change, extreme weather, and loss of biodiversity as the top three risks.
The report expresses the concern lingering effects of the coronavirus pandemic, increased economic protectionism and new labour market dynamics are inhibiting migrants migrants seeking to change countries for economic refuge.
Decreasing opportunities for orderly migration and the spillover effect on remittances risk forgoing a potential pathway to restoring livelihoods, maintaining political stability, and closing income and labour gaps, the report laments.
The WEF has previously floated its answers to a world of fear by promoting varying degrees of increased societal control under the guise of the self-described Great Reset, as Breitbart News reported.
The organization still calls for immediate action in 2022 to stave off all the above threats.
“Global leaders must come together and adopt a coordinated multi-stakeholder approach to tackle unrelenting global challenges and build resilience ahead of the next crisis,” Saadia Zahidi, WEF managing director, said.
EU’s Top Medical Body Says Omicron Pushing Pandemic Toward Endemic
“With the increase of immunity in population – and with Omicron, there will be a lot of natural immunity taking place on top of vaccination – we will be fast moving toward a scenario that will be closer to endemicity,” Cavaleri said at a press conference on Tuesday.
In epidemiology, an endemic is a state at which enough of the population has gained immunity to a virus, either from infection or vaccination, to cause a major drop in transmission, hospitalization, and death, leading to a lessening or even the end of the medical emergency.
“The highly transmissible Omicron variant was first detected in Europe at the end of last year. It has now spread quickly across our continent. It is fast becoming the dominant variant. It appears Omicron causes less severe disease than the Delta variant. Studies from South Africa, the UK and some European countries are showing that the risk of being hospitalized after infection with Omicron is decreased to approximately half compared to the Delta variant,” Cavaleri noted, while cautioning on the need for further studies.
“Omicron apparently presents some differences in the way it infects cells after binding to the ACE2 receptor, which could lead to a reduced spread of the disease into the lungs. On the other hand, Omicron is highly contagious, resulting in high numbers of infected individuals, so it is very important to be aware of its potential burden and not to dismiss it as a mild disease,” the official emphasized.
Cavaleri noted that the preliminary results of studies on existing vaccines’ effectiveness against the variant is “significantly reduced” compared to previous strains. “The studies suggest that more vaccinated people will develop breakthrough infection and disease resulting from Omicron due to the immunevasion associated with this variant,” he said, using another word for ‘viral antigenic escape’, which can be caused by so-called ‘leaky vaccines’.
Commenting on proposals to create a separate adapted vaccine designed specifically to tackle the variant, Cavaleri stressed that it needed to be taken into account that “by the time any vaccine adapted to Omicron is developed, it is possible that the epidemiological picture in the EU will have significantly evolved in terms of circulating variants and natural exposure to Omicron.”
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