The World Health Organisation has gone on to declare that COVID-19 is no longer a global health emergency. The statement can be seen as a prominent step towards ending the pandemic and comes after three long years since the World Health Organisation declared the highest ever alert on the virus. As per the officials, the virus health rate has dipped from a peak that went beyond 100,000 in a week in January 2021 to just more than 3500 as per April 24 figures.
According to the head of the WHO, almost 7 million people died throughout the pandemic. As per Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the actual figure is likely to be around 20 million deaths, which happens to be three times more than the official estimate. He also went on to warn that the virus still poses a significant threat.
Dr. Tedros said the emergency committee met for the 15th time and gave their recommendations to him so that he could declare an end to the public health emergency that has international concern. As per Dr. Tedros, he has accepted the advice and is, with great hope, declaring COVID-19 over as a worldwide health emergency.
He further said that the decision has indeed been carefully considered for some time and has been made purely on the basis of a precise data analysis. Although he also warned that the removal of the highest alert level doesn’t mean that the danger is over, he went on to say that the emergency status could be reinstated if the scenario saw a change.
According to him, the worst thing that any nation could do now is make use of this reason to let down its guard and also dismantle the system it has built to tackle the pandemic or even send a message to its citizens that COVID-19 is not something to worry about anymore.
It is well to be noted that the WHO first declared COVID-19 a public health emergency of international concern in January 2020. This signalled the requirement for a coordinated effort globally so as to protect the population from the new virus. It is now going to be up to individual nations to take care of COVID in the way they think happens to be the best for them.
Significantly, vaccines happened to be one of the major turning points during the pandemic. As per the WHO, 13 billion doses across the world have been given, thereby protecting people from serious health issues and even death. However, in many countries, vaccines haven’t been available yet. These are the areas which are the ones that are in actual need.
There have been more than 765 million confirmed infections of COVID-19 that have been officially recorded across the world. The UK and the US, as well as other nations, have already talked of living with the virus. WHO’s health emergencies programme director, Dr. Mike Ryan, has said that the emergency may have come to an end, but the threat still happens to be there. They completely expect the virus to continue its quest for transmission, and that this happens to be a history associated with all the pandemics. He added that it took decades for the 1918 pandemic virus to disappear completely. The fact is, he says, that pandemics actually end as and when the next pandemic begins.
