The World Health Organisation (WHO) has declared an end to the COVID-19 crisis.
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On Thursday, the global health agency’s Emergency Committee ended the ‘public health emergency of international concern’, it’s highest level of alert, which was instated on 30 January 2020. ‘No one should take (this) to mean COVID-19 is no longer a problem,’ says Mark Woolhouse, an epidemiologist at the University of Edinburgh. ‘It is still a significant public health problem and looks likely to remain one for the foreseeable future.’
Though the WHO does not declare the beginning or end of pandemics, it did start using the term for COVID-19 in March 2020.
This declaration follows four months after China ended its prolonged COVID-19 restrictions, after which the country experienced a major surge in infections.
Michael Ryan, the Who’s emergencies director, says although the crisis has ended, the battle is not over. ‘We still have weaknesses and those weaknesses that we still have in our system will be exposed by this virus or another virus. And it needs to be fixed. In most cases, pandemics truly end when the next pandemic begins.’
According to Reuters, the decision suggests that WHO advisers believe that although a new, more dangerous coronavirus variant is unlikely to emerge in the coming months, the virus remains unpredictable. ‘I will not hesitate to convene another emergency committee should COVID-19 once again put our world in peril,’ says Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, WHO Director-General.
Reuters reports that testing and mask-wearing has scaled down significantly across the globe. In light of this, the WHO updated its Strategic Preparedness and Response plan for 2023 to 2025 and published a long-term COVID-19 disease management plan to advise countries on how to manage the disease for the foreseeable future and in case of outbreaks.
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