“The Covid-19 pandemic is far from over,” warns WHO director

The Covid-19 pandemic is “far from over”, the director of the World Health Organization (WHO), Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, announced on Tuesday at a press conference in Geneva. “As the virus breaks through, we need to push it back,” Dr Tedros said. “As hospitalizations and transmission of Covid-19 increase, governments must deploy tried and tested measures like mask-wearing, improved ventilation, and testing and treatment protocols,” he added.

The pandemic still at the highest level of WHO alert

Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus spoke on the sidelines of the publication by the WHO of the results of the last meeting of the Emergency Committee on Covid-19, which was held last Friday. The UN agency has thus announced the maintenance of the Covid-19 pandemic at the rank of “public health emergency of international concern”, the highest level of alert of the organization, following a unanimous decision of the Committee.

The Committee points to the decline in screening and genomic sequencing, which make it “increasingly difficult” to assess the impact of Covid-19 variants, and underlines “the inadequacy of current surveillance” of the pandemic. The Committee notes the recent increase in the number of Covid-19 cases in different regions of the world, as well as the lack of implementation of appropriate public health measures in regions affected by a resurgence of cases.