Covid-19 threat expected to become on par with flu this year, says WHO

Covid-19 is more likely to be downgraded from a public well being emergency of worldwide concern this yr, because it shifts to the same degree of danger as flu, in keeping with the World Well being Group (WHO).

“We’re coming to that time the place we are able to have a look at covid-19 in the identical manner we have a look at seasonal influenza,” stated the WHO’s Michael Ryan at a press convention at present. “A risk to well being, a virus that may proceed to kill. However a virus that isn’t disrupting our society or disrupting our hospital programs.”

WHO director basic Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus made the announcement on the press convention. “We’re actually in a significantly better place now than we’ve got been at any time throughout the pandemic,” he stated.

The WHO declared covid-19 a public well being emergency of worldwide concern, its highest degree of risk, in January 2020, after coronavirus instances had been steadily rising in China and had been confirmed in 18 different international locations. Two months later, the organisation stated the phenomenon had turn into a pandemic, often taken to imply that an sickness is spreading in a number of international locations, though there is no such thing as a universally agreed definition.

Whereas the coronavirus continues to be broadly circulating, it’s now much less more likely to trigger critical sickness, as most individuals have had it not less than as soon as, many have been vaccinated a number of instances and the present omicron variants are much less virulent than some previous variants.

“It’s very pleasing to see that, for the primary time, the weekly variety of reported deaths prior to now 4 weeks has been decrease than once we first used the phrase ‘pandemic’ three years in the past,” stated Ghebreyesus. “I’m assured that, this yr, we will say that covid-19 is over as a public well being emergency of worldwide concern. We aren’t there but.”

A WHO committee has been reviewing the factors that might imply the risk from covid-19 may very well be downgraded, however hasn’t but reached a choice.

“We’re on a constructive trajectory,” stated Ryan. “The virus will signify much less and fewer of a risk to society, the place surges in virus transmission wouldn’t be related to increased charges of hospital admission,” stated Ryan. “We’ve begun to see that within the final six months, the place a surge in an infection has not been related to sustained stress on the well being system, as a result of charges of vaccination are excessive sufficient.”

Ryan added, nonetheless, that many international locations nonetheless had gaps in vaccination protection and in entry to antiviral therapies for many who are medically susceptible. “We’ve acquired to guard communities who is perhaps susceptible to extreme illness,” he stated. And if the virus evolves to turn into extra virulent, “all bets are off”, he stated.

Nonetheless, Stephen Griffin on the College of Leeds, UK, who’s a member of iSAGE, an impartial group of scientists, says the WHO’s plans are untimely. “Most worrying is the continued isolation and discrimination towards the tens of millions of clinically susceptible individuals, particularly these unable to make efficient vaccine responses,” he says.