The head of the World Health Organisation (WHO) has issued a warning to world leaders that the coronavirus pandemic “is nowhere near over”. Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus cautioned against the assumption that the newly dominant Omicron variant is significantly milder and has eliminated the threat posed by the virus. The intervention comes as some European nations saw record new case numbers. France reported nearly half a million new daily cases on Tuesday. For the first time since the start of the pandemic, more than 100,000 new infections were recorded in Germany within 24 hours on Wednesday. Speaking during a news conference at the WHO’s headquarters in Geneva, Dr Tedros told reporters that the Omicron variant had led to 18 million new infections across the world over the past week.(BBC)…[+]