As we enter the third year of the pandemic, World Health Organization (WHO) officials are now discussing how and when to call an end to the global Covid-19 crisis.
The WHO said it isn’t currently considering such a declaration. While cases have fallen in many places, fatalities have spiked in Hong Kong, and this week China reported more than 1,000 new daily cases for the first time in two years, a Bloomberg report suggested.
The UN Health Agency said they are currently focusing on what conditions would eventually signal that the public health emergency declared on Jan. 30, 2020, is over.
“Such a declaration would be not just a meaningful symbolic step, it would add momentum to the rollback of many pandemic-era public health policies.”
Meanwhile, WHO said it is continuing to monitor the global spread of omicron, including a “stealth” version known as BA.2, which has been documented to have re-infected some people after an initial case of omicron. There's mixed research on whether it causes more severe disease, but vaccines appear just as effective against it.
WHO noted that the current authorized COVID-19 vaccines are all based on the strain that was first detected in Wuhan, China more than three years ago.
“Since then, there has been continuous and substantial virus evolution and it is likely that this evolution will continue, resulting in the emergence of new variants,” the agency said. It added that coronavirus vaccines would likely need to be updated
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