ZAMBOANGA CITY - The World Health Organization (WHO) has lifted the Public Health Emergency of International Concern for COVID-19.
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| WHO Director General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus |
Then
he made the pronouncement: "Therefore, with great hope, I declare COVID-19 over
as a global health emergency."
He
went on to say that for more than a year the pandemic has been on a downward
trend and "this trend has allowed most countries to return to life as we knew
it before COVID-19."
He
also spoke of "the painful lessons we have learned," emphasizing that "the
investments we have made and the capacities we have built must not go to waste.
We owe it to those we have lost. To leverage those investments, to build on
those capacities, to learn those lessons and to transform that suffering into
meaningful and lasting change. One of the greatest tragedies of COVID-19 is
that it didn't have to be this way."
The
end of the emergency declaration comes more than three years after Tedros
announced it on January 30, 2020. At the time, there were fewer than 10,000
cases of the virus, most of them in China.
Nearly
seven million deaths from COVID-19 have been reported to WHO, Tedros said,
adding, more than one million of the deaths were in the United States alone. But
Tedros emphasized that “we know the (death) total is several times higher, at
least 20 million.”
During
that time, “the disease turned our world upside down,” he said. But the
landscape has changed dramatically. While new variants may still pose a threat,
vaccines and boosters have helped reduce the death rate, according to Tedros.
WHO
has issued the public health emergency declaration seven times since 2005. The
designation triggers a series of rules that guide response to threatening
disease outbreaks, including the fast-tracking of tests and medicines.
The
declaration for COVID-19 was the first time the WHO announced an international
health emergency since an Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic
of Congo in 2019.
Ramp
up vaccination
Just
recently, President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. ordered health authorities to ramp up
COVID-19 vaccination efforts, especially for young people, following a spike in
new cases.
“We
will have to conduct again, especially for young people, we’ll have to conduct
again a vaccination push para mabawasan na ‘yan, especially with people being a
little bit, shall we say, nahihirapan na nga eh dahil sa init, that brings
down…humihina ang katawan and that will make them more vulnerable to COVID
again,” Marcos said.
But he
was quick to allay fears about the rising numbers of new COVID-19 cases and
expressed confidence that government instrumentalities will be able to manage
the issue immediately.
“We
might have to think about it…ako ang tinitingnan ko is because although ‘yung
rate of increase lumalaki, ang baseline natin na sinimulan eh maliit lang so
hopefully we’re still ano… we’re still going to be able to do it,” Marcos said.
Department
of Health (DOH) Officer-in-charge Dr Maria Rosario Vergeire said the spike in
the positivity rate is due to several factors, which include the mobility of
the population on holidays as well as the number of people taking COVID-19
test.
From
January 2020 to April 2023, there have been 4,087,964 confirmed cases of
Covid-19 in the country with 66,444 deaths. As of March 8, a total of
170,690,206 vaccine doses have been administered, according to the World Health
Organization (WHO).
The
world health body is also keeping an eye on a new COVID-19 variant - the
omicron subvariant XBB.1.16, known as “Arcturus,” has been listed by the WHO as
a variant under monitoring since March 22.
This
was also reported by Mayo Clinic which quoted experts as saying that this
variant has a higher transmissibility rate than previous strains but doesn't
appear to be more dangerous. “It is causing increasing case counts in
certain parts of the world, including India. We're not seeing high rates of
XBB.1.16 yet in the United States, but it may become more prominent in coming
weeks,” said Dr. Matthew Binnicker, director of the Clinical Virology
Laboratory at Mayo Clinic.
He said
experts are seeing new symptoms with the new variant. “One new feature of cases
caused by this variant is that it seems to be causing conjunctivitis, or red
and itchy eyes, in young patients. This is not something that we've seen with
prior strains of the virus,” Binnicker said.
Respiratory rates declining
Binnicker
said respiratory viruses, including COVID-19 infections, influenza, and RSV
have declined in the U.S. in recent weeks. “The case counts of respiratory
infections have begun to drop as we're entering into the spring months in the
Northern Hemisphere with warmer temperatures and people getting outdoors,” he
said. “Respiratory viruses, like SARS-CoV-2, tend to decline in the spring and
summer months, and that is what we're seeing in most parts of the U.S. right
now.”
SARS-CoV-2,
the virus that causes COVID-19, keeps emerging because the virus mutates and
copies itself as it spreads from person to person, creating new variants.
“New
variants come and go. We're seeing increased transmission rates, so higher
levels of infectivity with recent COVID-19 variants, but in general, they tend
to be causing less severe disease in individuals, which is good news,”
Binnicker explained. “This is likely due to a combination of factors, including
higher vaccination rates, higher rates of immunity from prior infection, and
lower pathogenicity of recent variants.”
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