The Covid-19 is now sufficiently under control to lift the maximum level of alert, the WHO decided on Thursday, after more than three years of a pandemic which killed “at least 20 million” dead, undermined the economy world and further widened the inequality gap. “It is with great hope that I declare that Covid-19 is no longer a health emergency of international concern,” said WHO Director General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, saying that this disease had done “ at least 20 million” dead, almost three times more than the previous official toll of his organization.
As of May 3, the WHO dashboard showed just under seven million officially recorded deaths.
“A long-term management of the pandemic”
The experts consulted by the Director General judged that “it was time to move on to long-term management of the Covid-19 pandemic” despite the uncertainties that remain on the evolution of the virus. The organization’s highest level of alert was declared on January 30, 2020, just a few weeks after the detection in China of the first cases of this new viral respiratory disease against which there was then no specific treatment.
But it was not until the head of the WHO spoke of a pandemic in March 2020 that States and populations became aware of the seriousness of the situation and that sometimes very restrictive health measures – up to long months of confinement – are put in place. SARS-CoV-2 was by then already well underway on its deadly journey which would see it emerge very quickly around the world. The fight against the pandemic was invented gradually, often out of order, as illustrated by the chaotic management of Donald Trump’s presidency, often deaf to scientific recommendations.
The crisis phase “is over but not the Covid”
If the number of newly recorded deaths caused by Covid has dropped by 95% since January, there were still 16,000 to die of this disease between the end of March and the end of April because of the virus, according to WHO statistics. Yet in many countries the pandemic has faded into the background. Tests and health monitoring are reduced to the minimum portion. A disarmament deemed premature by the WHO. The crisis phase “has passed but not the Covid”, thus warned Friday Maria Van Kerkhove, who managed the fight against the Covid-19 within this organization, calling not to “let our guard down”.
The vaccines, which appeared in record time at the end of 2020, nevertheless remain effective against the most severe forms of the disease despite the countless mutations of the original virus. An undeniable scientific success, vaccines, especially messenger RNA ones implemented for the first time, were first monopolized by countries that could afford to pay the high price, leaving the others on the sidelines for very long periods of time. month.
One in 10 infections results in a long Covid
As of April 30, more than 13.3 billion doses of vaccines had been injected. Antivax also mobilized en masse and cast suspicion on vaccination in general, supported by massive disinformation campaigns on social networks. Economic inequalities and access to care have been brutally exposed. The long queues of Brazilians with huge oxygen cylinders to save a loved one from asphyxiation marked, like the images of the countless pyres in India to burn the bodies.
In many countries, the pandemic now seems like background noise, new variants continue to appear and threaten to restart the infernal machine. “The virus continues to mutate and it is still capable of causing new waves of contamination and death,” the head of the WHO recently underlined. He also drew attention to the ravages of the long Covid, which results in a wide range of more or less disabling symptoms. According to him, one infection in 10 translates into a long Covid, suggesting that hundreds of millions of people could need long-term care and whose magnitude and economic and psychological cost are still very poorly taken into account.
Avoid the next health disaster
The world is now looking for the best way to avoid the next health disaster. But the international community has not yet been able to determine with certainty how this virus had mutated into a form that can be transmitted between humans. If, a priori, the first cases were detected at the end of 2019 in Wuhan in China, two theories clash: leak from a laboratory in the city where these viruses were studied or intermediate animal having infected people who frequented a local market.
This last theory seems for the moment favored by the majority of the scientific community but the obstruction of the Chinese authorities prevents progress in the investigation of the origins. At the WHO, member countries have also begun to discuss a future binding agreement that would better nip the next pandemic in the bud and avoid repeating the same mistakes. The question is not if but when it will happen.