The head of the UN World Health Organization (WHO) has
declared “with great hope” an end to COVID-19 as a
public health emergency, stressing that it does not mean the
disease is no longer a global threat.
“Last week,
COVID-19 claimed a life every three minutes – and that’s
just the deaths we know about”, said Tedros Adhanom
Ghebreyesus, WHO Director-General,
briefing the media at the agency’s headquarters in
Geneva.
According to WHO’s
Coronavirus Dashboard which has collated key statistics
since early in the pandemic, the cumulative cases worldwide
now stand at 765,222,932, with nearly seven million deaths:
the precise figure currently stands at 6,921,614.
As
of 30 April, a total of more than 13.3 billion vaccine doses
have been administered worldwide.
‘Still killing,
still changing’
He said the virus – first made a
public health emergency of international concern by the WHO
chief on 30 January, 2020 – was here to stay: “It is still
killing and it is still changing. The risk remains of new
variants emerging that cause new surges in cases and
deaths.”
He said that the decision had not been made
lightly. For the past year, the WHO-led Emergency Committee
had been carefully examining the data, on the right time to
lower the alarm.
For over 12 months, the pandemic
“has been on a downward trend”, he said, with immunity
increasing due to the highly effective vaccines developed in
record time to fight the disease, and infections. Death
rates have decreased and the pressure on once overwhelmed
health systems, has eased.
“This trend has allowed
most countries to return to life as we knew it before
COVID-19”, Tedros added.
‘Torrent of mis- and
disinformation’
But he reflected that the impact of
the pandemic had “exposed political fault lines, within
and between nations. It has eroded trust between people,
governments and institutions, fuelled by a torrent of mis-
and disinformation.”
Tedros also noted the enormous
damage inflicted on all aspects of global life by the virus,
including enormous economic upheaval, “erasing trillions
from GDP, disrupting travel and trade, shuttering
businesses, and plunging millions into poverty.”
He
reminded that as he was speaking, thousands around the world
continue to fight for their lives in intensive care, and
millions more, will live for the foreseeable future, “with
the debilitating effects” of post-COVID conditions, or
so-called “long COVID”.
The WHO chief said that at
one level, the end of the emergency was a moment to
celebrate, and he paid tribute to the “incredible skill
and selfless dedication of health and care workers”
worldwide.
Reflecting on the ‘deep
scars’
But at another level, it was a time for deep
reflection, with COVID continuing to leave “deep scars on
our world.”
“These scars must serve as a permanent
reminder of the potential for new viruses to emerge, with
devastating consequences”, he said.
Learn from
mistakes
Many mistakes were made, including a lack of
coordination, equity and solidarity, which meant that
existing tools and technologies were not best used to combat
the virus.
“We must promise ourselves and our
children and grandchildren, that we will never make those
mistakes again”, he said.
“This experience must
change us all for the better. It must make us more
determined to fulfil the vision that nations had when they
founded the WHO in 1948: the highest possible standard of
health, for all
people.”
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