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‘Wrong anniversary’: Two years since declaration of Covid-19

The WHO declared a public health emergency of international concern (PHEIC) – the highest level of alarm in the global health regulations – on 30 January 2020, when, outside of China, fewer than 100 cases and no deaths had been reported
It has been two years since the World Health Organization first declared Covid-19 as a pandemic. But the UN health body has voiced its frustration at people marking 11 March as the second anniversary of the public health emergency, stating that the real alarm came six weeks earlier.
“The fact that people are recognising 11 March as the anniversary of the pandemic is wrong. It is fundamentally incorrect. The anniversary is when the warning was issued. You issue the warning to prepare. You do not issue it when you are in the middle of it," said Maria Van Kerkhove, the WHO's technical lead on Covid-19.
“You hear the frustration in our voices because we still have not corrected the narrative. The alarm is the public health emergency of international concern," she added.
The WHO declared a public health emergency of international concern (PHEIC) – the highest level of alarm in the global health regulations – on 30 January 2020, when, outside of China, fewer than 100 cases and no deaths had been reported.

But it was only when WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus described the worsening situation as a pandemic on 11 March that many countries seemed to wake up to the danger.
By that time, the number of cases outside China had increased 13-fold, with more than 1,18,000 people having caught the disease in 114 countries, and 4,291 people having lost their lives, following a jump in deaths in Italy and Iran.
On the issue, WHO emergencies director Michael Ryan echoed Kerkhove's statement and said that by 11 March two years ago, the world was possessed with the word pandemic.
"The warning in January was way more important than the announcement in March. Do you want the warning to say you've just drowned, or would you like the warning to say the flood is coming?" he asked.
Ryan said the PHEIC declaration fell on deaf ears.

"People weren't listening. We were ringing the bell and people weren't acting," he told a live interaction on the WHO's social media channels on Thursday.

"What I was most stunned by was the lack of response, the lack of urgency in relation to WHO's highest level of alert in international law, as agreed by all our member states. They agreed to this!"
He said the declaration of a pandemic was simply stating the obvious once it had already happened and insisted countries had plenty of advance notice.
"There's a lot of people in the media and everywhere have this big argument, WHO declared a pandemic late. No!" said Ryan.
“The world was well warned about the impending pandemic. By March, I think there was such frustration that it was, 'OK, you want a pandemic, here's your pandemic'," he added.

Need for vigilance
Two years on, the WHO is still calling for countries to stay vigilant.
The number of fresh cases fell five percent worldwide last week compared to the week before, while the number of deaths dropped eight percent.
However, Kerkhove on Wednesday warned that the case rate was certainly an underestimate due the dramatic drop-off in testing.

"The virus is still spreading at far too intensive a level, three years into this pandemic," she said.
"Even though we are seeing declining trends... there were still more than 10 million reported cases reported at a global level last week.

"We have to remain vigilant."
In its weekly update on the spread of the virus, the WHO said earlier that the Omicron variant had "global dominance" over other mutations of the virus.
It said Omicron accounted for 99.7% of samples collected in the last 30 days that have been sequenced and uploaded to the GISAID global science initiative.
The WHO says unequal access to Covid-19 vaccines, tests and treatments remain rampant and is prolonging the pandemic.

"Even though we are seeing declining trends... there were still more than 10 million reported cases reported at a global level last week.

"We have to remain vigilant."
in its weekly update on the spread of the virus, the WHO said earlier that the Omicron variant had "global dominance" over other mutations of the virus.
It said Omicron accounted for 99.7% of samples collected in the last 30 days that have been sequenced and uploaded to the GISAID global science initiative.
The WHO says unequal access to Covid-19 vaccines, tests and treatments remain rampant and is prolonging the pandemic.

:-China locks down the city of 9 million people amid new Covid wave

Amid a surge in Covid cases, neighbouring China has decided to impose a lockdown in the city of Changchun, which inhibits around 9 million residents as it faces a fresh spike in Covid-19 cases.

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