GENEVA – The World Health Organization said on Friday that COVID-19 no longer qualifies as a global emergency, marking a symbolic end to the devastating coronavirus pandemic that has ravaged the world. unprecedented blockade, upsetting economies around the world and killing at least 7 million people worldwide.
WHO first declared COVID-19 an emergency more than three years ago. Officials with the United Nations health agency said that although the emergency phase is over, the pandemic is not over yet, noting a recent spike in cases in Southeast Asia and the Middle East. . WHO says thousands of people are still dying from the virus every week.
WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said: “I strongly hope to declare COVID-19 a global health emergency.
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“That does not mean that COVID-19 is no longer a global health threat,” he said, adding that he would not hesitate to reconvene experts to reassess the situation if COVID-19 -19 “puts our world in jeopardy.”
Tedros said the pandemic had been on a downward trend for more than a year, acknowledging that most countries were back to work before COVID-19.
He lamented the damage COVID-19 has caused to the global community, saying the virus has disrupted businesses, exacerbated political divisions and plunged millions into poverty. . Tedros also noted that there are likely to be at least 20 million deaths from COVID-19, far more than the officially reported 7 million.
“COVID has changed our world and it has changed us,” he said, warning that the risk of new variants emerging.
Dr Michael Ryan, WHO’s emergencies director, said heads of state and other leaders have a responsibility to decide how to face future health threats, given the myriad The problem has crippled the world’s response to COVID-19. Countries are negotiating a pandemic pact that some hope could explain clearly what future epidemic threats will face — but it’s unlikely any such pacts will be. will be legally binding.
When the United Nations health agency first declared the coronavirus an international crisis on January 30, 2020, it had not yet been named COVID-19 and there was no major outbreak. any other than China.
More than three years later, the virus has caused about 764 million cases of illness globally, and about 5 billion people have received at least one dose of the vaccine.
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In the United States, the public health emergency declaration regarding COVID-19 will expire on May 11, when broad-based measures to support the pandemic response, including the mandate to inject vaccine, will be over. Many other countries, including Germany, France and Britain, dropped many of their provisions to fight the pandemic last year.
When Tedros declared COVID-19 a state of emergency in 2020, he said his biggest fear was the potential for the virus to spread in countries with weak health systems he described. is “unprepared”.
In fact, some of the countries with the worst COVID-19 death tolls were previously judged to be the best prepared for the pandemic, including the US and UK. According to WHO data, the number of deaths reported in Africa accounts for only 3% of all global deaths.
The WHO does not “declare” a pandemic, but first used the term to describe the outbreak in March 2020, when the virus had spread to every continent except Antarctica, long after Many other scientists say a pandemic is underway.
The WHO is the only agency authorized to coordinate the world’s response to acute health threats, but the organization has faltered many times during the coronavirus outbreak.
In January 2020, the WHO publicly applauded China for its supposedly quick and transparent response, although audiotapes of private meetings obtained by the Associated Press show top officials. disappointed at the lack of cooperation of this country.
WHO also recommends that people not wear masks to protect from COVID-19 for months, a mistake many health officials say costs their lives.
Many scientists have also criticized the WHO’s reluctance to admit that COVID-19 is frequently spread in the air and by people without symptoms, and criticized the agency’s lack of strong guidance to prevent the spread of the virus. such exposure.
Tedros is a fierce critic of rich countries for hoarding limited supplies of COVID-19 vaccines, warning that the world is on the brink of “serious moral failure” by not sharing vaccines with others. poor countries.
Most recently, the WHO is struggling to investigate the origins of the coronavirus, a challenging scientific endeavor that has also turned politically tense.
After a weeks-long visit to China, the WHO released a report in 2021 concluding that COVID-19 most likely spread to humans from animals, dismissing the possibility that it originated in a laboratory. “extremely unlikely”.
But the UN agency returned the following year, saying that “critical pieces of data” were still missing and it was too early to rule out the possibility that COVID-19 could be lab-related.
A panel commissioned by the WHO to review the organization’s work has criticized China and other countries for not acting faster to contain the virus and said the organization is limited both in terms of health and safety. financial constraints and inability to force states to act.
