The end of the coronavirus came when Chinese President Xi Jinping announced the end of the zero tolerance policy against Covid-19.
It was preceded by the resignation of popular New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern due to burnout, and followed by Joe Biden’s decision to lower the level of national concern related to the coronavirus, now that it poses a threat similar to that of the flu.
The change of page became official with the related announcement from the World Health Organization (WHO) on May 5, when the end of the global state of emergency due to the pandemic was declared, since the virus that causes it is sufficiently checked.
It should be noted that since the first day of its creation, approximately 7 million people have died and more than 765 million confirmed cases of Covid-19 have been registered.
Downward trend
“For more than a year, the pandemic has been on a downward trend,” WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told a news conference in Geneva.
“What this news means is that the time has come for countries to move from a state of emergency to managing Covid-19 along with other infectious diseases,” he said.
“The worst thing any country could do now is use this news as a reason to drop their guard, dismantle the systems they have built, or send the message to their people that Covid-19 is not something to worry about,” he clarified. . , speaking of a continuous threat.
“This virus is here and it will stay,” he said characteristically. “Keep killing and keep changing. The risk of new variants appearing that causes new waves of cases continues to exist,” stressed the WHO director-general, posing the fatal question of whether humanity has finally rid itself of the coronavirus or is it simply a respite that it will soon find. in the same gloomy task of the spectator.
feared ambiguity
With nearly 3 million cases and more than 17,000 deaths recorded in April, including some outbreaks in Southeast Asia and the Middle East, it’s clear that its end carries a dreaded ambiguity that shouldn’t be taken lightly.
The coronavirus remains a public health threat and its continued evolution could cause problems in the future, confirms WHO emergencies chief Dr. Michael Ryan.
“It took decades for the 1918 pandemic virus to disappear,” he adds, referring to the Spanish flu, which is believed to have killed at least 40 million people.
“Pandemics only really end when the next one starts,” he stresses, explaining that while covid-19 will continue to spread between people for a long time, it will do so at a much lower threat level that does not require action. of emergency. to try to limit the spread of the virus.
AIDS vs Covid-19
In an attempt to answer the original question, Lori Garrett, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist for Foreign Policy, compares covid-19 to AIDS.
The AIDS pandemic never stopped, he writes, humanity simply stopped paying attention to it once an effective treatment was found, reducing the risk of serious illness and the amount of virus in the blood of people infected with it to near zero. the virus. of transmitting it to others through sexual contact or through contaminated blood and by sharing needles.
But HIV still spreads, makes sick and kills. It has never “gone away” and the virus, which is still evolving, shows no sign of abating, either in its pathogenicity or its transmissibility.
In addition, infected people must remain on medications for life, and the viruses they contain can develop resistance to first- or second-line treatment, leading to the use of complex cocktails and increasingly expensive treatments.
Restrictions and Vaccines
Between 2000 and 2015 alone, global spending on the HIV/AIDS pandemic approached $600 billion, peaking in 2013 and has been on a downward trend ever since.
Like AIDS, the victory over covid-19 was achieved through a combination of restrictions (less sex for the former, avoidance of intimacy for the latter) and vaccinations.
And just as AIDS has not disappeared, Covid-19 will not cease to exist around us, like a permanent nightmare that no longer keeps us awake, but will not let us sleep in complete peace either…