Covid not a worldwide emergency, World Health Organisation says
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ovid-19 is not a worldwide well being emergency, the Word Health Organisation (WHO) has mentioned.
“It’s with great hope that I declare Covid-19 over as a global health emergency,” WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said.
“That does not mean Covid-19 is over as a global health threat.”
Tedros mentioned the pandemic had been on a downward trend for more than a year, acknowledging that most countries have already operating in a post-Covid landscape.
He bemoaned the damage Covid had caused, saying the virus had shattered businesses and plunged millions into poverty.
“Covid has changed our world and it has changed us,” he said, warning that the risk of new variants still remained.
Global cases and death rates are a fraction of what they were at the height of the pandemic and Covid-related deaths have been at their lowest level for each of the past 10 weeks since the pandemic began in March 2020.
The latest figures from the WHO show that there were just over 3,568 Covid deaths around the world in the last week of April, from a peak of more than 100,000 in January 2021.
A recent WHO report says Covid-19 “stays a worldwide emergency” but it “seems to be in transition to a extra endemic state of affairs globally” – raising hopes that one of the deadliest and disruptive pandemics of modern history is finally over.
Professor Susan Hopkins, chief medical advisor at the UK Health Security Agency, said: “The World Health Organisation’s move to end Covid-19 as a Public Health Emergency of International Concern (PHEIC) is thanks to effective vaccinations and treatments which have greatly reduced the risk of severe disease and death from infection around the world.
“Thanks to those well being interventions, we have now already transitioned to residing with Covid-19 in England, however we proceed to observe the virus by way of our vary of surveillance programs and genomics capabilities and stand ready to reply if the danger will increase sooner or later.’’