The World Health Organisation (WHO) has declared the conclusion of the Wuhan coronavirus (COVID-19) global public health emergency. However, the three-year emergency has had lasting effects.
WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus made the declaration during a 5 May news conference held at the global health body’s headquarters in Geneva, Switzerland.
For more than a year, the pandemic has been on a downward trend with population immunity increasing from vaccination and infection, mortality decreasing and the pressure on health systems easing
This trend has allowed most countries to return to life as we knew it before COVID-19. It’s therefore with great hope that I declare COVID-19 over as a global health emergency
It has caused severe economic upheaval – erasing trillions from [gross domestic product], disrupting travel and trade, shuttering businesses, and plunging millions into poverty. It has [also] caused severe social upheaval with borders closed, movement restricted, schools shut and millions of people experiencing loneliness, isolation, anxiety and depression
Despite this, the WHO director-general also emphasised during the news conference that it is high time for countries around the world to transition from doing an emergency response to managing COVID-19 like other infectious diseases.
Public health emergency may end, but medical tyranny is here to stay
The WHO’s decision comes as the U.S. is set to end its national public health emergency on 11 May 2023.
According to Reuters, the Biden administration will end COVID-19 emergency declarations almost three years after they were first announced. Former President Donald Trump first announced the public health emergency in 2020. Incumbent President Joe Biden, who succeeded Trump, repeatedly extended the emergency measures.
In a statement, the White House’s Office of Management and Budget (OMB) said the declarations would be extended one final time until 11 May and then terminated. “This wind-down would align with the [Biden] administration’s previous commitments to give at least 60 days’ notice prior to termination of the public health emergency,” the OMB added. (Related: Biden signs GOP-led bill that ends COVID-19 national emergency.)
Millions of Americans are receiving free COVID-19 tests, vaccines and treatments – all paid for by the government. Private insurance companies and government health plans will cover the cost of these when the public health emergency expires on 11 May.
While the pandemic may be over, Tedros insinuated that the medical tyranny first implemented at the height of COVID-19 must remain. The WHO director-general warned against complacency.
[COVID-19] has left and continues to leave deep scars on our world. Those scars must serve as a permanent reminder of the potential for new viruses to emerge, with devastating consequences. As a global community, the suffering we have endured, the painful lessons we have learned, the investments we have made and the capacities we have built must not go to waste
[The] virus is here to stay. It is still killing, and it’s still changing. The worst thing any country could do now is to use this news as a reason to let down its guard, to dismantle the systems it has built, or to send the message to its people that COVID-19 is nothing to worry about
Sources include:
CNBC.com
Reuters.com
MB.com.ph
Brighteon.com