The World Health Organization (WHO) warned on Friday that the COVID-19 pandemic might wane this year to the point where it poses a hazard like the flu. The WHO expressed optimism about the pandemic phase of the virus coming to an end. And expressed confidence that it will be able to announce an end to the emergency sometime in 2023.
This past weekend marks three years since the World Health Organization first described the situation as a pandemic. But WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus believes countries should have acted sooner than that. Michael Ryan, the head of the WHO emergency department, said during a news conference. I think we’re getting to the stage where we can look at COVID-19 in the same way we look at seasonal influenza.
Weekly 5,000 fatalities due to COVID
A virus that will never die is a threat to everyone’s health. Yet, I believe that ultimately a new virus will appear, as Tedros said this year. One that doesn’t decimate our civilization or healthcare infrastructure. According to the head of WHO, things are much better now than they were early in the pandemic. We will be able to proclaim COVID-19 to be over as a PHEIC this year. I’m confident of it (public health emergency of international significance).
The WHO issued a PHEIC on January 30, 2020, which is the greatest level of worry it can issue when less than 100 cases. And no fatalities had been reported outside of China. Yet Tedros alluded to the growing situation as a pandemic on March 11 of that year. Many nations didn’t seem to understand the risk.
About seven million deaths from COVID-19 have been documented three years later. But we know that the true death toll is substantially greater. The fact that the number of reported deaths each week over the last four weeks had decreased from when he originally labeled COVID-19 as a pandemic made him happy for the first time. Yet, he said that 5,000 too many recorded fatalities each week for a condition that may be avoided and cured.
Data revealed by WHO
In the Chinese city of Wuhan, the first illnesses with the novel coronavirus were noted in late 2019. Tedros went on to speak on new information regarding the early stages of the epidemic and remarked, Even as we become more optimistic about the end of the pandemic. The issue of how it originated remains unresolved.
The information comes from the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention. And refers to samples obtained in 2020 at Wuhan’s Huanan market. Maria Van Kerkhove, the WHO’s technical head on COVID, said they demonstrated molecular evidence that animals were traded at the market, including animals vulnerable to SARS-CoV-2 — the virus that causes COVID-19 illness.
Late in January, the material was posted to the GISAID global science project database. It was later removed, but not before several scientists downloaded, examined, and notified the WHO last weekend of its removal. Tedros remarked, This data should have and should have been released three years ago. We keep urging China to provide data transparently, undertake the required inquiries, and report the findings.
Van Kerkhove stated that all explanations about the origin of the pandemic are still valid. She listed some of them, such as getting into the human population through a bat. An intermediate host species, or through a lab biosecurity breach.
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