The World Health Organization lamented Tuesday that half a million Covid-19 deaths had been recorded since the Omicron variant was discovered, calling the toll “beyond tragic”. The WHO’s incident manager Abdi Mahamud said that 130 million cases and 500,000 deaths had been recorded globally since Omicron was declared a variant of concern in late November. It has since rapidly overtaken Delta as the world’s dominant Covid variant because it is more transmissible, though it appears to cause less severe illness. “In the age of effective vaccines, half a million people dying, it’s really something,…