The World Health Organization said Friday that COVID-19 no longer qualifies as a global emergency, marking a symbolic end to the devastating coronavirus pandemic that triggered once-unthinkable lockdowns, upended economies worldwide and killed at least 7 million people worldwide.
WHO first declared COVID-19 to be an emergency more than three years ago. The U.N. health agency鈥檚 officials said that even though the emergency phase was over, the pandemic hasn鈥檛 come to an end, noting recent spikes in cases in Southeast Asia and the Middle East. WHO says that thousands of people are still dying from the virus every week.
鈥淚t鈥檚 with great hope that I declare COVID-19 over as a global health emergency,鈥� WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said.
鈥淭hat does not mean COVID-19 is over as a global health threat,鈥� he said, adding he wouldn鈥檛 hesitate to reconvene experts to reassess the situation should COVID-19 鈥減ut our world in peril.鈥�
Tedros said the pandemic had been on a downward trend for more than a year, acknowledging that most countries have already returned to life before COVID-19.
He bemoaned the damage that COVID-19 had done to the global community, saying the virus had shattered businesses, exacerbated political divisions and plunged millions into poverty. Tedros also noted that there were likely at least 20 million COVID-19 deaths, far more than the officially reported 7 million.
鈥淐OVID has changed our world and it has changed us,鈥� he said, warning that the risk of new variants still remained.
Dr. Michael Ryan, WHO鈥檚 emergencies chief, said it was incumbent on heads of states and other leaders to decide on how future health threats should be faced, given the numerous problems that crippled the world鈥檚 response to COVID-19. Countries are negotiating a pandemic treaty that some hope may spell out how future disease threats will be faced 鈥� but it鈥檚 unlikely any such treaty would be legally binding.
When the U.N. health agency first declared the coronavirus to be an international crisis on Jan. 30, 2020, it hadn鈥檛 yet been named COVID-19 and there were no major outbreaks beyond China.
More than three years later, the virus has caused an estimated 764 million cases globally and about 5 billion people have received at least one dose of vaccine.
In the U.S., the public health emergency declaration made regarding COVID-19 is set to expire on May 11, when wide-ranging measures to support the pandemic response, including vaccine mandates, will end. Many other countries, including Germany, France and Britain, dropped many of their provisions against the pandemic last year.
When Tedros declared COVID-19 to be an emergency in 2020, he said his greatest fear was the virus鈥� potential to spread in countries with weak health systems he described as 鈥渋ll-prepared.鈥�
In fact, some of the countries that suffered the worst COVID-19 death tolls were previously judged to be the best-prepared for a pandemic, including the U.S. and Britain. According to WHO data, the number of deaths reported in Africa account for just 3% of the global total.
WHO doesn鈥檛 鈥渄eclare鈥� pandemics, but first used the term to describe the outbreak in March 2020, when the virus had spread to every continent except Antarctica, long after many other scientists had said a pandemic was already underway.
WHO is the only agency mandated to coordinate the world鈥檚 response to acute health threats, but the organization faltered repeatedly as the coronavirus unfolded.
In January 2020, WHO publicly applauded China for its supposed speedy and transparent response, even though recordings of private meetings obtained by The Associated Press showed top officials were frustrated at the country鈥檚 lack of cooperation.
WHO also recommended against members of the public wearing masks to protect against COVID-19 for months, a mistake many health officials say cost lives.
Numerous scientists also slammed WHO鈥檚 reluctance to acknowledge that COVID-19 was frequently spread in the air and by people without symptoms, criticizing the agency鈥檚 lack of strong guidance to prevent such exposure.
Tedros was a vociferous critic of rich countries who hoarded the limited supplies of COVID-19 vaccines, warning that the world was on the brink of a 鈥渃atastrophic moral failure鈥� by failing to share shots with poor countries.
Most recently, WHO has been struggling to investigate the origins of the coronavirus, a challenging scientific endeavour that has also become politically fraught.
After a weeks-long visit to China, WHO released a report in 2021 concluding that COVID-19 most likely jumped into humans from animals, dismissing the possibility that it originated in a lab as 鈥渆xtremely unlikely.鈥�
But the U.N. agency backtracked the following year, saying 鈥渒ey pieces of data鈥� were still missing and that it was premature to rule out that COVID-19 might have ties to a lab.
A panel commissioned by WHO to review its performance criticized China and other countries for not moving quicker to stop the virus and said the organization was constrained both by its limited finances and inability to compel countries to act.
鈥擬aria Cheng And Jamey Keaten, The Associated Press
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