Public health experts at the World Health Organization, WHO, have begun discussing how and when to call an end to the global Covid-19 crisis, exploring what would be an important milestone more than two years after the emergence of the virus.
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.
“The International Health Regulations Emergency Committee on Covid-19 is looking at the criteria needed to declare the public health emergency of international concern as terminated,” the agency said in an email. “As of now, we are not there yet.”
Many nations around the world have already taken steps to return to more normal social behaviors, relaxing masking and quarantine guidelines, and opening borders to travel. Still, many countries in Asia are reporting record levels of transmission, and in Germany cases recently rebounded back near record levels. There have been more than 10 million COVID cases and 52,000 deaths in the past week, the WHO said.
Researchers have also warned that even if Covid-19 cases fall to lower levels, the disease is still likely to cause thousands of deaths annually, not unlike other endemic illnesses such as malaria and tuberculosis. And the potential for new, dangerous variants is unpredictable.
Pfizer Inc. and Merck & Co. have agreed to allow generic competition to their COVID treatments until the pandemic ends. Vaccine makers including AstraZeneca Plc have said they’ll keep prices for their products low until the pandemic ends, without specifying what the benchmark for that would be.
