Worldwide, there have been at least 170,000 deaths in the past two months alone. For a total of at least 7 million deaths, three years after the start of the pandemic, according to the World Health Organization (WHO). And this is probably an underestimated estimate, due to the large number of countries that did not have the necessary resources, for three years, to do this kind of compilation.
January 30, the WHO has decided to maintain the maximum alert for a while. The situation remains worrying in many countries and for too many people whose health remains vulnerable, while vaccination against the virus often remains insufficient.
The WHO recommends that States continue the national vaccination dynamic, fight against the infodemic (the epidemic of false news on the coronavirus, its transmission and natural treatments) but also to prepare for future crises.
How to live with COVID? Isabelle Burgun talks about it with:
- Joanne Liu, pediatrician-emergency physician at the University Hospital Center of Ste-Justine Hospital. She is also a professor in the School of Population & Global Health and sits on the independent WHO COVID Response Evaluation Committee. She has also been International President of Doctors Without Borders.
- Roxane Borges Da SilvaDirector and Professor in the Department of Management, Evaluation and Health Policy at the School of Public Health at the Université de Montréal.
US President Biden announced in September 2022 that “the pandemic was over”. Despite the fact that even today many Americans are catching COVID and dying from it. Certainly, we are no longer in an emergency situation, as in the beginning, yet that does not mean that the threat has disappeared, does it? What does this “maximum alert” maintained by the WHO mean and why is it maintained?
Has COVID become endemic and if so, what does this term mean?
We are starting to learn more about the virus and vaccination has helped a lot, but we are not immune to new, more virulent variants and we do not yet understand the long COVID very well?
Living with the virus means adopting good practices and changing our behavior. What is the public health approach to this?
There will be changes to be made at government level, for example to put in place rigorous systems for detecting new variants. As well as information systems for the population. As well as protocols to maintain free access to rapid tests and to make masks available to all. As well as mechanisms to ensure access to vaccines in developing countries. What to start with?
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I vote for science airs Mondays at 1 p.m. on the five regional stations of Radio VM. It is moderated by Isabelle Burgun. Research for this program: Isabelle Burgun. You can also listen to us, among others, on CIBO (Senneterre), CFOU (Trois-Rivières), and CHOM (Toronto).
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Image credit: FDA
