In a hopeful sign for the world, the World Health Organisation (WHO) has said that the world has ‘never been in a better position to end the pandemic’, pointing to the decrease in worldwide Covid-19 cases and deaths. The international health body however, added that future coronavirus waves are expected and that governments across the world needed to remain vigilant and ready to respond to any threat that may emerge.
“We have never been in a better position to end the pandemic,” WHO Director General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said at a press briefing in Geneva on Wednesday. According to the WHO, during the week of September 5-11, the number of new weekly cases worldwide decreased by 28 per cent over the previous week to more than 3.1 million. The number of new weekly deaths was down 22 per cent to just under 11,000.
So, how likely are we to get out of the pandemic and how could it happen? News18 decodes:
‘It’s the End of the Marathon Race, Leap Over!’
Tedros likened the pandemic response to a marathon race. “Now is the time to run harder and make sure we cross the line and reap the rewards of all our hard work,” he said.
That was the most upbeat assessment from the UN agency since it declared an international emergency in January 2020 and started describing Covid-19 as a pandemic three months later.
The virus, which emerged in China in late 2019, has killed nearly 6.5 million people and infected 606 million, roiling global economies and overwhelming healthcare systems.
The rollout of vaccines and therapies have helped to stem deaths and hospitalisations, and the Omicron variant which emerged late last year causes less severe disease. Deaths from COVID-19 last week were the lowest since March 2020, the U.N. agency reported. Countries need to take a hard look at their policies and strengthen them for COVID-19 and future viruses, Tedros said. He also urged nations to vaccinate 100% of their high-risk groups and keep testing for the virus.
Vaccines Like Flu Shot in US?
“It’s probably fair to say most of the world is moving beyond the emergency phase of the pandemic response,” said Dr Michael Head, senior research fellow in global health at Southampton University.
Governments are now looking at how best to manage Covid as part of their routine healthcare and surveillance, he said.
Europe, the United Kingdom and the United States have approved vaccines that target the Omicron variant as well as the original virus as countries prepare to launch winter booster campaigns.
In the United States, Covid-19 was initially declared a public health emergency in January 2020, and that status has been renewed quarterly ever since.
The U.S. health department is set to renew it again in mid-October for what policy experts expect is the last time before it expires in January 2023.
US health officials have said that the pandemic is not over, but that new bivalent vaccines mark an important shift in the fight against the virus. They predict that a single annual vaccine akin to the flu shot should provide a high degree of protection and return the country closer to normalcy.
India’s Deadly Second Wave & Progress Thereafter
India saw its first case of Covid-19 in January 2020. What followed was a period of lockdown and the first wave of the Covid-19 pandemic. Daily cases peaked in mid-September, with over 90,000 reported per day, before falling to less than 15,000 in January 2021.
The second wave, which began in March 2021, was far more devastating than the first, with parts of the country experiencing shortages of vaccines, hospital beds, oxygen cylinders, and other medical supplies. By late April, India had surpassed the rest of the world in terms of new and active cases. It became the first country to report over 400,000 new cases in a 24-hour period on April 30, 2021.
In late August 2021, Soumya Swaminathan stated that India may be in an endemic stage where the country learns to live with the virus. India had 78,190 active cases as of December 23, 2021, the lowest number in 573 days. In March 2022, this figure was reduced to 21,530. In between this, India also saw its Omicron or third wave, which was relatively milder than the other two waves.
Cases Now and Vaccine
India saw a single day rise of 4,417 new coronavirus infections on September 6, the lowest in last three months. The country has been registering dips and highs on some weeks since the Omicron wave, but no wave-like peaks have been registered.
The country logged 5,108 new coronavirus infections yesterday, taking the total tally of Covid-19 cases to 4,45,10,057, while the active cases dipped to 45,749, according to the Union Health Ministry data updated on Wednesday. The death toll climbed to 52,82,16 with 19 fatalities, which includes 12 deaths reconciled by Kerala, the data updated at 8 am stated.
As many as 215.67 crore total vaccine doses, including 94.57 crore second dose and 18.70 crore precaution doses have been administered so far under the nationwide vaccination drive. A total of 19,25,881 doses were administered in the last 24 hours, the ministry said. The country’s vaccine drive has expanded to include all adults for the booster dose, while two doses are available for teens as well.
Which Variant is Dominating and the China Debacle
The WHO reported that the omicron subvariant BA.5 continues to dominate globally and comprised nearly 90% of virus samples shared with the world’s biggest public database. In recent weeks, regulatory authorities in Europe, the U.S. and elsewhere have cleared tweaked vaccines that target both the original coronavirus and later variants including BA.5. Maria Van Kerkhove, the WHO’s technical lead on COVID-19, said the organization expected future waves of the disease, but was hopeful those would not cause many deaths.
Meanwhile in China, residents of a city in the country’s far western Xinjiang region have said they are experiencing hunger, forced quarantines and dwindling supplies of medicine and daily necessities after more than 40 days in a lockdown prompted by COVID-19. Hundreds of posts from Ghulja riveted users of Chinese social media last week, with residents sharing videos of empty refrigerators, feverish children and people shouting from their windows. On Monday, local police announced the arrests of six people for spreading rumors about the lockdown, including posts about a dead child and an alleged suicide, which they said incited opposition and disrupted social order.
Leaked directives from government offices show that workers are being ordered to avoid negative information and spread positive energy instead. One directed state media to film smiling seniors and children having fun in neighborhoods emerging from the lockdown. The government has ordered mass testing and district lockdowns in cities across China in recent weeks, from Sanya on tropical Hainan island to southwest Chengdu, to the northern port city of Dalian.
With inputs from agencies
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