(AFP / ALAIN JOCARD)
“Since the beginning of December, the deaths reported each week have increased. In the last eight weeks, more than 170,000 people have lost their lives due to Covid-19”, alarmed the director general of the World Health Organization. health (WHO), Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, this Monday, January 30.
After three years and millions of deaths, the Covid-19 pandemic is still a threat. This Monday, January 30, the World Health Organization (WHO) confirmed that the virus remained
a public health emergency of international concern,
as it did for the first time on January 30, 2020. The world had less than 100 cases and no deaths outside of China.
The WHO listed on Friday
more than 752 million patients and nearly 7 million deaths,
according to official figures, far below the reality of the organization’s own admission. Its director general, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, followed the recommendations of the Emergency Committee on Covid-19, experts who met for the 14th time last week.
“As we enter the fourth year of the pandemic, there is no doubt that we are in
a much better situation now than a year ago,
when the Omicron wave was at its peak”, declared the head of the WHO at the opening of its Executive Committee meeting this Monday in Geneva for a week. But, he immediately tempered:
“Since early December, deaths reported each week have increased.
Over the past eight weeks, more than 170,000 people have lost their lives to Covid-19.”
“My message is clear:
“Do not underestimate this virus,
it has surprised us and will continue to surprise us and it will continue to kill, unless we do more to provide health means to people who need it and to fight misinformation on a global scale”, had insisted the director general last week.
The worst health crisis in over a hundred years
For the week of January 16 to 22, half of the
40,000 official deaths
had been registered in China. Despite some of the toughest health restrictions in the world, variants of the virus have managed to break through and at the end of last year, in the face of popular discontent, the Chinese authorities were forced to abandon the Covid-19 policy. zero.
The gigantic wave of infections, which swept the country now seems to be easing. Officially
the number of deaths has dropped by almost 80%.
Scarred by the failures at the start of 2020, many countries had introduced restrictions for travelers from China.
In fact, the alert launched on January 30, 2020, served by an evocative name, had failed to convince the authorities and the general public of the urgency of the situation. It wasn’t until March 11 when Dr. Tedros first spoke publicly of a “pandemic” that the
worst health crisis in over a hundred years
was taken seriously.
“The next pandemic could be imminent”
Three years later, the Committee considers that “the Covid-19 pandemic is probably at
a transition point”
but the boss of the WHO regrets that surveillance and genetic sequencing, which make it possible to follow the evolution of the virus and its movements, have fallen sharply. He also regrets that too few people are properly vaccinated, whether in poor countries due to a lack of serums, resources and mistrust, or in better-off countries where
a weariness emerges
and where the antivax movement has sown doubt, despite numerous studies showing the benefits of vaccines.
“We cannot control the Covid-19 virus, but
we can do more
to address the vulnerabilities of populations and health systems,” said Dr. Tedros on Monday. But the world remains
“dangerously unprepared”
to the next pandemic, the Red Cross warned in a report on the lessons of the pandemic published on Monday.
“The next pandemic could be imminent
and if the experience of Covid-19 does not speed up preparations, what will?” asked Jagan Chapagain, secretary general of the International Federation of Red Cross and Human Rights Societies. Red Crescent (IFRC) “Global preparedness for the Covid-19 pandemic was inadequate and we are still suffering the consequences.
There will be no excuse” if we don’t prepare,
he pointed out.
