The World Health Organization (WHO) has lifted the international corona health emergency. What are the consequences?
The most important things at a glance
The global corona pandemic is no longer considered an international health emergency. The World Health Organization (WHO) decided on Friday. The head of the World Health Organization (WHO), Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, announced on Friday in Geneva that the highest alert level that can be imposed in the event of a threat has been lifted. “The pandemic has been following a declining trend for a year,” Tedros said.
Covid-19 considered a “persistent health problem”
The WHO explains, among other things, that there are fewer deaths from Covid-19 and that the number of hospital admissions and intensive care patients is also decreasing. In addition, there is now a high level of immunity in the population.
It is therefore time “to move to long-term management of the Covid 19 pandemic”. Covid-19 is now a “persistent health problem” and no longer constitutes a health emergency.
Effects of the WHO decision on the population
The decision does not have any concrete effects because each country determines for itself which protective measures it imposes. When WHO declares a public health emergency, it wants to rouse governments and the public to take a threat seriously and prepare.
The WHO only makes recommendations. The WHO continues to appeal to governments not to get on with business as usual. Because: The SARS-CoV-2 virus is not defeated, as Tedros emphasized.
It continues to circulate in the world, is dangerous and can develop dangerous variants at any time. Nevertheless, the WHO followed the recommendation of an independent expert committee because it is convinced that the world has good tools to protect people from the virus. In addition to vaccines and medication, this also includes protective measures such as wearing masks or keeping your distance in crowded and poorly ventilated indoor spaces.
UN vaccination program saved 2.7 million people
According to an analysis, the UN vaccination program Covax alone saved 2.7 million lives in low-income countries by the end of 2022 through corona vaccinations.
According to WHO statistics, significantly fewer people are experiencing a severe course of the disease Covid-19 than at the beginning of the pandemic, when vaccines and medicines were not yet available. Nevertheless, from April 3 to 30 of this year alone, almost 2.8 million new infections and over 17,000 deaths were reported to the WHO.
However, since there is hardly any testing in many countries, this is not considered an accurate picture of the situation. For months, the WHO has been asking for more corona tests to be carried out and for viruses to be genetically examined. This is the only way to get an overview of the spread of possible new variants.
Health emergency applied for more than three years
When the WHO declared the corona health emergency on January 30, 2020, around 100 infections were known in around 20 countries outside of China and no deaths. According to the WHO, around 765 million infections and a good 6.9 million deaths have now been reported worldwide.
Experts assume that the number of unreported cases is much higher. Among other things, causes of death are not assigned correctly everywhere. The WHO has declared a public health emergency seven times since 2005, officially a “Public Health Emergency of International Concern” (PHEIC).
The Corona emergency was the second longest. The longest applies to polio and has existed since 2014. Since July 2022 there has also been a monkeypox emergency. Emergencies have also been declared for influenza A virus H1N1 (2009-2010), Ebola in West Africa (2014-2016), Zika (2016) and Ebola in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (2019-2020).
