Chinese trade, tourism to gain as WHO declares end to Covid-19 global emergency, top disease expert says
- WHO declaration is ‘likely to reduce the disruptions’ for China’s international trade, tourism and academic exchanges, Liang Wannian tells Xinhua
- China will continue to monitor coronavirus variants, pandemic response chief pledges, as WHO cautions against letting down guard
The WHO downgraded the pandemic on Friday, nearly three years after declaring its highest level of alert against Covid-19.
The disease was no longer “a public health emergency of international concern”, WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus announced, while cautioning that it still represented a significant global health threat.
“The worst thing any country could do now is to use this news as a reason to let down its guard, to dismantle the systems it has built, or to send the message to its people that Covid-19 is nothing to worry about,” Tedros said.
The WHO announcement represented hope for the end of an pandemic that has claimed millions of lives worldwide, while disrupting the global economy and supply chains.
The declaration was “likely to reduce the disruptions for China’s international trade, tourism and academic exchanges, caused by some previous pandemic restriction measures,” said Liang, head of the National Health Commission’s Covid-19 expert team, who led China’s “zero-Covid” response.
China will continue to monitor coronavirus variants, and improve its public health service system, he pledged.
China started to ease its draconian anti-pandemic policy in December, after nearly three years of mass PCR tests, quarantines and strict border controls that had taken a social and economic toll and significantly hampered international travel and exchanges. Almost all border controls were lifted in early January.
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China has since resumed flights with 59 countries, representing around 82 per cent of pre-pandemic levels, according to official data.
But recovery has remained sluggish amid tensions with the United States and Europe, while the domestic aviation sector has rebounded quickly.
On Weibo, China’s equivalent of Twitter, the hashtag “Covid-19 is no longer a public health emergency of international concern” made the trending list after it was reported by several media outlets, clocking up 400 million views in less than a day.
The WHO declaration also drew a response from Zhang Wenhong, a Shanghai-based infectious disease expert who shot to fame with his straightforward comments on the pandemic.
“The virus will continue to exist, but the pandemic is over. It feels great to be normal again,” Zhang said.
