GENEVA: The Covid-19 pandemic could take hold this year to the point of posing a threat similar to the flu, the World Health Organization announced on Friday.
The WHO said it is confident it will be able to declare an end to the emergency in 2023, saying it has growing hope that the pandemic phase of the virus will end.
Last weekend marked three years since the UN health agency first described the situation as a pandemic – although the WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus insists that countries should have taken action several weeks earlier.
“I think we’re getting to this point where we can look at Covid-19 the same way we look at seasonal flu,” WHO emergency director Michael Ryan told a news conference.
“A health threat, a virus that will continue to kill. But a virus that does not disrupt our society or our hospital systems, and I believe that will come, because Tedros said, this year.”
The WHO chief said the world is in a much better position now than it has been at any time during the pandemic.
“I am confident that this year we can say that Covid-19 is over as a public health emergency of international concern (USPPI),” he said.
5,000 deaths per week
The WHO declared a USPPI – the highest level of alarm it could sound – on January 30, 2020, when outside of China fewer than 100 cases and no deaths had been reported.
But it wasn’t until Tedros described the worsening situation as a pandemic on March 11 that year that many countries seemed to realize the danger.
“We have declared a global health emergency to urge countries to take decisive action, but not all countries have done so,” he said on Friday.
“Three years later, there are nearly seven million reported deaths from Covid-19, although we know the true death toll is much higher.”
He rejoiced that for the first time the weekly number of reported deaths over the past four weeks was lower than it was when he first described Covid-19 as a pandemic.
But he said the more than 5,000 reported deaths per week were 5,000 too many for a preventable and treatable disease.
The WHO said it is confident it will be able to declare an end to the emergency in 2023, saying it has growing hope that the pandemic phase of the virus will end.
Last weekend marked three years since the UN health agency first described the situation as a pandemic – although the WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus insists that countries should have taken action several weeks earlier.
“I think we’re getting to this point where we can look at Covid-19 the same way we look at seasonal flu,” WHO emergency director Michael Ryan told a news conference.
“A health threat, a virus that will continue to kill. But a virus that does not disrupt our society or our hospital systems, and I believe that will come, because Tedros said, this year.”
The WHO chief said the world is in a much better position now than it has been at any time during the pandemic.
“I am confident that this year we can say that Covid-19 is over as a public health emergency of international concern (USPPI),” he said.
5,000 deaths per week
The WHO declared a USPPI – the highest level of alarm it could sound – on January 30, 2020, when outside of China fewer than 100 cases and no deaths had been reported.
But it wasn’t until Tedros described the worsening situation as a pandemic on March 11 that year that many countries seemed to realize the danger.
“We have declared a global health emergency to urge countries to take decisive action, but not all countries have done so,” he said on Friday.
“Three years later, there are nearly seven million reported deaths from Covid-19, although we know the true death toll is much higher.”
He rejoiced that for the first time the weekly number of reported deaths over the past four weeks was lower than it was when he first described Covid-19 as a pandemic.
But he said the more than 5,000 reported deaths per week were 5,000 too many for a preventable and treatable disease.
