Experts: too soon to end the covid-19 pandemic

Reuters and Afp

Newspaper La Jornada
Tuesday December 13, 2022, p. 17

Geneva. Seth Berkley, director of the Global Alliance for the Promotion of Vaccination and Immunization (GAVI), said yesterday that it was too early to end the covid-19 emergency, stating that the pandemic could still get worse.

The World Health Organization (WHO) decides whether an outbreak represents a public health emergency of international concerna designation intended to kick off a coordinated international response and one that could unlock funds to help share vaccines and treatments.

Asked if the WHO should end the emergency phase of covid-19, GAVI’s Seth Berkley said the situation could get worse.

I guess Dr Tedros (Adhanom Ghebreyesus, head of the WHO) is thinking about this global situation, which could get worse. He could improve. We don’t know where it’s going. Seems like a tough time to stop this emergencyhe told reporters.

At the same press conference, Berkley said he expected demand for covid-19 vaccines to remain strong in 2023.

We expect hundreds and hundreds of millions of doses to be requested. That’s what countries say they wanthe claimed.

The GAVI alliance is part of the Covax device, which to date has delivered around 1.9 billion doses to 146 nations.

Meanwhile, the number of covid-19 patients is skyrocketing in Beijing, Chinese authorities reported, following a decision last week to relax health restrictions.

Authorities said more than 22,000 patients had visited Beijing hospitals the day before, 16 times more than the previous Sunday.

The trend of the rapid spread of the epidemic in Beijing continuesLi Ang, a spokesman for the city’s health department, told reporters. The number of consultations for fever and flu states has increased significantly, and the volume of calls (…) to the emergency services has multipliedhe added.

Another sign of the change in health policy is the announcement yesterday of the deactivation of the main movement control application, which was used to check if people had traveled through an area affected by the virus.

The global balance of the pandemic so far is 6,654,223 deaths and 649,599,846 cases, according to Johns Hopkins University.