After convening an expert panel on Thursday, WHO decided to lower its highest level of alert.
The World Health Organisation (WHO) has declared the COVID-19 pandemic over.
WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus stated, “It is with great optimism that I declare COVID-19 no longer a global health emergency.” This does not imply that COVID-19 is no longer a threat to global health.
COVID-19 has changed our world, and it has changed us,” he said, cautioning that the threat of new variants remained.
He said the pandemic has been declining for over a year, and most countries have reverted to pre-COVID life.
Mr. Adhanom Ghebreyesus also emphasized the harm COVID had caused to the global community, stating that the virus had destroyed businesses and plunged millions of people into destitution.
After convening an expert panel on Thursday, WHO decided to lower its highest level of alert. The UN body did not “declare” pandemics. But used the phrase to describe the outbreak in March 2020, after many experts had already declared it.
In May of last year, WHO experts stated that the end of the pandemic was “in sight” and published policy briefs for governments to follow regarding infection control, testing, vaccination, and misinformation.
The NHS COVID app was deactivated last month and will be discontinued on May 16.
The Office for National Statistics reported in the same month that COVID was no longer a prominent cause of death in England and Wales.
Professor Susan Hopkins, principal medical advisor at the Health Security Agency in the United Kingdom, stated,
“The World Health Organization’s decision to end COVID-19 as a Public Health Emergency of International Concern (PHEIC) is due to effective vaccinations and treatments that have substantially reduced the risk of severe disease and mortality from infection throughout the world.
“Thanks to these health interventions, we have already adapted to living with Covid-19 in England. However, we continue to monitor the virus through a variety of surveillance systems and genomics capabilities and stand ready to respond if the risk increases in the future.”
On March 11, 2020, COVID was proclaimed a pandemic, resulting in lockdowns and travel restrictions across the globe.
Since then, there have been over six million COVID-related fatalities worldwide.
764 million people have contracted the virus, and 5 billion have received a vaccination.
