At the 12th meeting of the International Health Regulations (2005) Emergency Committee on Friday, July 8, it was concluded that COVID-19 remains a public health emergency of international concern.
I’m concerned that cases of COVID-19 continue to rise, putting further pressure on [sic] health systems and health workers. I’m also concerned about the increasing trend of deaths, ” said WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus.
“The emergency committee on COVID-19 met on Friday last week and concluded the virus remains a public health emergency of international concern,” the director-general added.
The emergency committee looked at a number of things that make up the international pandemic response by WHO and the individual states around the world.
The committee noted the following:
Cases of COVID-19 reported to WHO had increased by 30 percent in the last two weeks, largely driven by Omicron BA.4, BA.5, and other descendent lineages and the lifting of public health and social measures (PHSM).
The inequities in access to testing, sequencing, vaccines, and therapeutics, including new antivirals; the waning of natural and vaccine-derived protection; and the global burden of Post COVID-19 condition.
There have been steep reductions in testing, resulting in reduced coverage and quality of surveillance as fewer cases are being detected and reported to WHO; and fewer genomic sequences are being submitted to open access platforms.
In the absence of public health and local measures used to contain the virus, new, fitter variants are emerging, with different degrees of virulence, transmissibility, and immune escape potential.
For these reasons, the Committee highlighted the need for all States Parties to continue to apply PHSM proportionate to their epidemiological situation, stressing the continued use of effective, individual-level protective measures to reduce transmission.
What does this all mean?
Simply put, the emergency committee recommended, and the WHO Director-General recommends that countries return to the days of mask mandates, mandatory COVID testing, and mass surveillance.
“As hospitalizations and transmissions rise, governments must also deploy tried and tested measures, such as masking, improved ventilation, and test and treatment protocols,” Adhanom Ghebreyesus said. “… Governments should also work to reduce their reduction in surveillance, testing, and sequencing, and share antivirals effectively.”
Many countries across Europe and the world have listened to WHO and are now advising residents to ‘mask up’ and ‘get your booster’ in the face of the new BA.5 Covid variant, according to EuroWeek.
President Joe Biden is also aware of the WHO’s latest warning to the world. On Tuesday, he tweeted: “My team and I have been monitoring the BA.5 variant of COVID-19 for months. We’re prepared, and we know how to manage this moment with the vaccines, treatments, and other tools we have made widely available.”
As the Director-General of the World Health Organisation, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said on Thursday, July 7: “Wear a mask.”
