The World Health Organization (WHO) on Tuesday (Apr 18) warned the COVID-19 pandemic was still volatile, saying there could be further trouble before the virus settles into a predictable pattern.
In the last 28 days, more than 23,000 deaths and three million new cases have been reported to the WHO, in the context of much-reduced testing.
While the numbers are decreasing, “that’s still a lot of people dying and that’s still a lot of people getting sick”, WHO emergencies director Michael Ryan told a press conference.
He said respiratory viruses do not pass from a pandemic to an endemic phase, but instead move to low levels of activity with potentially seasonal epidemic peaks.
“We don’t turn off a pandemic switch,” said Ryan.
“It’s much more likely that we’re going to see … a bumpy road to a more predictable pattern.”
The WHO’s emergency committee on COVID-19 meets every three months and is due to assemble in early May.
As at its previous meetings, it will decide whether the virus still constitutes a public health emergency of international concern (PHEIC) – the highest level of alert that the UN health agency can sound.
The WHO declared COVID-19 a PHEIC on Jan 30, 2020, when there were fewer than 100 cases and no deaths outside China.
But it was not until WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus described the situation as a pandemic in March 2020 that the world jolted into action.
Source: Reuters
