By Staff
May 5th, 2023
BURLINGTON, ON
The virus, often a variant of the original Covid19, is still with us. Booster shots are advised.
The World Health Organization said today that COVID-19 no longer qualifies as a global emergency it has been downgraded from a pandemic to an epidemic.
WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said today that “It’s with great hope that I declare COVID-19 over as a global health emergency”
It is more than a symbolic end to the devastating coronavirus pandemic that triggered once-unthinkable lockdowns, upended economies and killed millions of people worldwide.
The pandemic’s impact on society isn’t fully known yet; three years of being under a state of emergency had massive impacts on how we relate to one another. Do you notice how people deliberately stand apart from others – creating what came to be known is as social distancing?
That the U.N. health agency’s stated the emergency phase was over doesn’t mean , the pandemic has come to an end – there are still outbreaks in Southeast Asia and the Middle East.
Refrigerated trailers had to be used to hold the bodies of Covid victims when funeral homes in the United States ran out of space.
WHO says thousands of people are still dying from the virus every week, and millions of others are suffering from debilitating, long-term effects.
“That does not mean COVID-19 is over as a global health threat,” said,Ghebreyesus; warning that new variants could yet emerge. He noted that while the official COVID-19 death toll was 7 million, the real figure was estimated to be at least 20 million.
Ghebreyesus 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 pandemic had shattered businesses, exacerbated political divisions, led to the spread of misinformation and plunged millions into poverty.
