Friday marked a significant step toward the end of the epidemic that has killed more than 6.9 million people, devastated the global economy, and decimated communities when the World Health Organization formally proclaimed COVID-19 no longer a global health emergency.
The WHO’s Emergency Committee met on Thursday and urged the UN agency terminate the coronavirus crisis, which has been ongoing for more than three years, as a “public health emergency of international concern.”
“It is therefore with great hope that I declare COVID-19 over as a global health emergency,” said WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus. He said that the emergency had ended but COVID remained a threat to the world’s health.
On January 30, 2020, the WHO’s emergency committee for the first time announced that COVID represented its highest degree of alarm. The situation promotes collaboration on vaccines and treatments and helps center attention on a threat to the world’s health.
Didier Houssin, the chairman of the agency’s COVID emergency committee, reported that the majority of the committee agreed to end the global health emergency designation.
Lifting it is a sign of how far the global effort to combat the disease has come, but COVID-19 will remain, according to the WHO, even though it is no longer considered an emergency.
According to WHO data, the death rate has decreased from a peak of more than 100,000 persons per week in January 2021 to just over 3,500 in the week ending April 24, 2023. This decrease is due to widespread vaccination, access to better treatments, and a level of public immunity from previous epidemics.
Although many have already adapted as the pandemic has subsided in various locations, ending the emergency may also mean that international collaboration or funding efforts come to a stop or change their focus.
“The fight is not yet over. We still have weaknesses, and this virus or another virus will disclose those deficiencies that we still have in our system. And it needs to be corrected,” declared Michael Ryan, director of emergencies for the WHO.
Although it began using the word for COVID in March 2020, the WHO does not proclaim the start or end of pandemics.
According to Ryan, pandemics often cease when the next one starts.
American President Joe Biden declared the outbreak to be over last year. The largest economy in the world has started to lift its domestic COVID state of emergency, which will officially expire on May 11. As a result, many individuals will no longer receive immunizations and testing, and the burden will be placed on the commercial sector.
Similar actions have been made in other areas. The pandemic’s emergency phase was declared completed by the European Union in April of last year, and the WHO’s regional director for Africa, Matshidiso Moeti, declared it was time to transition COVID management across the continent to routine management in December.
Only four months have passed since China lifted its lengthy, tight COVID restrictions, at which point the country was wracked by a massive spike in infections.
Masks are no longer often worn, and testing has drastically decreased in many regions of the world. During COVID outbreaks, mask-wearing regulations have been reinstated in various nations. This week, the WHO released a plan that offers guidance to nations on how to manage COVID over the long run.
