World Health Organization Declares COVID-19 'Over' As 'Global Health Emergency,' Sparking Mixed Reactions Online
It's been over three years since COVID-19 grew into a global health emergency, fundamentally changing lives around the world. The introduction of vaccines has allowed for the easing of the tight restrictions that defined the first year of the pandemic, causing many, including PSY of "Gangnam Style" fame, to declare the pandemic over. This morning, the World Health Organization got as close to officially declaring the COVID-19 pandemic over as the world is likely to see.
Speaking at a news conference in Geneva, WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said that the organization has said that COVID-19, while still a "threat," is "no longer a global health emergency."
"For more than a year, the pandemic has been on a downward trend with population immunity increasing from vaccination and infection, mortality decreasing, and the pressure on health systems easing," he said.
"This trend has allowed most countries to return to life as we knew it before Covid-19. It’s therefore with great hope that I declared Covid-19 over as a global health emergency." WHO tweeted Dr. Ghebreyesus's comments afterward.
The news was met with mixed reactions from social media users. On the one hand, many areas of the world have more or less returned to a pre-Covid lifestyle, and WHO's declaration could largely be seen as a symbolic "end" to the pandemic for some. Others felt the effects of COVID-19, and particularly the "long Covid" phenomenon, are still being felt around the world, and WHO's declaration continued a global trend of governments and authority figures downplaying the virus.
Though Dr. Ghebreyesus had declared the end of Covid-19 as a "global health emergency," he conceded "the virus is here to stay." He urged governments not to dismantle the systems in place they'd developed to help their citizens through the pandemic and warned that it was still possible a new variant could emerge.
Share Pin
polandgod75
Can't said for other places and countries, but here in the west coast USA, it stopped being a thing since last year.
Geigh Science
A couple years ago I would have pounced on someone being this guy, but I think it should be pointed out: "a covid death every 3 minutes" is a very brain-fucky way to describe the death toll. That only works out to 480 deaths, worldwide, per day. Am I happy those people are dying? Of fucking course not. Does that really amount to a huge number on a world of 8 billion? Eh.
The fact is that the covid genie is very thoroughly out of the bottle at this point. You're not going to get people to put masks back on. You're not going to get successfully enact lockdowns, nor are you going to get any meaningful majority of people to step on an endless treadmill of booster shots for a sequence of increasingly obscure covid strains.
I'm in a weird place where I disagree with both sides of the covid issue in pretty major ways, and I really wish we didn't have to politicize a virus in the fucking first place. I stayed masked in public for the first two years (never caught covid, btw, unless that bad cough I picked up from the latina I was fucking last year ended up being some weak-ass strain) and I was in favor of very strict lockdowns and travel restrictions during the first few weeks while there was still some vague hope of it being contained. But at this point, the virus has become endemic and we pretty much just have to live with it.
SardonicRainboom
We get Flu shots every year.
Kenetic Kups
Literally 1984
Briham
Um, excuse me? I was told there would be a fascistic power-grab? People were very emphatic that the pandemic and lockdown were going to be cover for an authoritarian takedown and removal of almost all civil liberties? It's weird because the only power-grab appears to have come from a lot of the same people. You know, the ones who were saying we should resist the lockdowns because they were just a pretense for a power-grab. I mean, they seemed very, very sure that the restrictions would not gradually ease as the pandemic subsided, and yet, here we are. Did screaming in supermarkets when asked to wear a mask successfully prevent a fascist takeover? Someone explain it to me, please.
polandgod75
hell most countries expect china stop taking covid seriously a year ago, even one that had strict lockdowns like Austrilia where going "it been nearly 2 years and most people are vaccine so screw it everything is open"
PhasmaFelis
"There was going to be a tiger attack. So I got a tiger-repelling rock. No tigers showed up. This proves the rock works."
Watermelanie
>"didn't you say that billions were going to die because of the vaccine and somebody had to do something? all you did was just stand in the street and scream for a couple days."
>"yeah and it didn't happen because I did that"
>"what?"
DonKonga
I was at Chick-fil-a the other day and there was a stack of coloring sheets for kids with a tub of crayons next to it. The tub had a sign taped to it that said "Please return after use". I already had all the confirmation I needed that the covid emergency is over but I appreciate the WHO offering their thoughts as well.
Chewybunny
Every example here of people critical of WHO ending it sounds like nothing but total virtue signaling.
A person dies every 3 minutes sounds scary as hell, except that's 280 people a day…around the world. So what does that mean? It means roughly 1.4 people per country…per day. To put it into bigger perspective 332,648 people die every day. That means COVID deaths account for 0.00084% of all deaths every day.
Come on.
brawnhilda
You forgot the part where even a mild infection has a 1/10 chance of causing a complication like diabetes, heart disease, brain damage, et al and that chance increases with each subsequent infection.
PhasmaFelis
480 people a day. 60 * 24 / 3 = 480.
That's still not a big number in terms of overall deaths, but at least double-check your arithmetic.
Ten Shadows
An emergency implies something we can fight to be rid of, and should. It does not mean your common everyday Tuesday, your everyday woes and struggles that we're stuck with it and just have to deal with the best we can. That's what COVID-19 has become now. This is our life now.
brawnhilda
But we can fight COVID; with vaccines, HEPA filters, UV lights, ventilation, and masking when/where appropriate. For example, indoor spaces can install HEPA filters with or without UV lights and/or they can keep windows open in good weather, this eliminates or at least reduces the need for masks in those indoor spaces.When possible events can be held outdoors. Then the only places we should be wearing masks is in health care settings. Does that seem out of the question?
Ten Shadows
Sure, we can help ourselves against many common everyday dangers and hazards. We put on seatbelts and wear helmets when we go out on cars or bikes, and we have fire alarms at home to reduce the chance of accidents, and we watch ourselves to not slip in the shower, and keep poisonous substances and sharp objects away from our kids. Just to name some examples.
Yet they're still part of our everyday lives. Accidents can still happen. We can still get COVID. We'll never be truly safe.
brawnhilda
The problem is we aren't doing anything to mitigate the spread of COVID; we're riding bikes without helmets and driving cars without seatbelts while pretending there is no serious danger.