The World Health Organization said Friday that COVID-19 no longer qualifies as a global emergency, marking a symbolic end to the devastating coronavirus pandemic that triggered once-unthinkable lockdowns, upended economies worldwide and killed at least 7 million people worldwide.
WHO first declared COVID-19 to be an emergency more than three years ago. The U.N. health agencyB次元官网网址檚 officials said that even though the emergency phase was over, the pandemic hasnB次元官网网址檛 come to an end, noting recent spikes in cases in Southeast Asia and the Middle East. WHO says that thousands of people are still dying from the virus every week.
B次元官网网址淚tB次元官网网址檚 with great hope that I declare COVID-19 over as a global health emergency,B次元官网网址� WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said.
B次元官网网址淭hat does not mean COVID-19 is over as a global health threat,B次元官网网址� he said, adding he wouldnB次元官网网址檛 hesitate to reconvene experts to reassess the situation should COVID-19 B次元官网网址減ut our world in peril.B次元官网网址�
Tedros said the pandemic had been on a downward trend for more than a year, acknowledging that most countries have already returned to life before COVID-19.
He bemoaned the damage that COVID-19 had done to the global community, saying the virus had shattered businesses, exacerbated political divisions and plunged millions into poverty. Tedros also noted that there were likely at least 20 million COVID-19 deaths, far more than the officially reported 7 million.
B次元官网网址淐OVID has changed our world and it has changed us,B次元官网网址� he said, warning that the risk of new variants still remained.
Dr. Michael Ryan, WHOB次元官网网址檚 emergencies chief, said it was incumbent on heads of states and other leaders to decide on how future health threats should be faced, given the numerous problems that crippled the worldB次元官网网址檚 response to COVID-19. Countries are negotiating a pandemic treaty that some hope may spell out how future disease threats will be faced B次元官网网址� but itB次元官网网址檚 unlikely any such treaty would be legally binding.
When the U.N. health agency first declared the coronavirus to be an on Jan. 30, 2020, it hadnB次元官网网址檛 yet been named COVID-19 and there were no major outbreaks beyond China.
More than three years later, the virus has caused an estimated 764 million cases globally and about 5 billion people have received at least one dose of vaccine.
In the U.S., the public health emergency declaration made regarding COVID-19 is set to expire on May 11, when wide-ranging measures to support the pandemic response, including vaccine mandates, will end. Many other countries, including Germany, France and Britain, dropped many of their provisions against the pandemic last year.
When Tedros declared COVID-19 to be an emergency in 2020, he said his greatest fear was the virusB次元官网网址� potential to spread in countries with weak health systems he described as B次元官网网址渋ll-prepared.B次元官网网址�
In fact, some of the countries that suffered the worst COVID-19 death tolls were previously judged to be the best-prepared for a pandemic, including the U.S. and Britain. According to WHO data, the number of deaths reported in Africa account for just 3% of the global total.
WHO doesnB次元官网网址檛 B次元官网网址渄eclareB次元官网网址� pandemics, but first used the term to describe the outbreak in , when the virus had spread to every continent except Antarctica, long after many other scientists had said a pandemic was already underway.
WHO is the only agency mandated to coordinate the worldB次元官网网址檚 response to acute health threats, but the organization faltered repeatedly as the coronavirus unfolded.
In January 2020, WHO publicly applauded China for its supposed speedy and transparent response, even though recordings of showed top officials were frustrated at the countryB次元官网网址檚 lack of cooperation.
WHO also recommended against members of the public wearing masks to protect against COVID-19 for months, a mistake many health officials say cost lives.
Numerous scientists also slammed WHOB次元官网网址檚 reluctance to acknowledge that COVID-19 was frequently spread in the air and by people without symptoms, criticizing the agencyB次元官网网址檚 lack of strong guidance to prevent such exposure.
Tedros was a of rich countries who hoarded the limited supplies of COVID-19 vaccines, warning that the world was on the brink of a B次元官网网址渃atastrophic moral failureB次元官网网址� by failing to share shots with poor countries.
Most recently, WHO has been struggling to investigate the origins of the coronavirus, a challenging scientific endeavour that has also become politically fraught.
After a weeks-long visit to China, WHO released a in 2021 concluding that COVID-19 most likely jumped into humans from animals, dismissing the possibility that it originated in a lab as B次元官网网址渆xtremely unlikely.B次元官网网址�
But the U.N. agency backtracked the following year, saying B次元官网网址渒ey pieces of dataB次元官网网址� were still missing and that it was premature to rule out that COVID-19 might have ties to a lab.
A panel commissioned by WHO to review its performance criticized China and other countries for not moving quicker to stop the virus and said the organization was constrained both by its limited finances and inability to compel countries to act.
B次元官网网址擬aria Cheng And Jamey Keaten, The Associated Press
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