WHO says Covid deaths down 95 per cent this year, hopeful of declaring end of emergency phase
- WHO chief says hopeful of moving out of Covid emergency phase ‘sometime this year’
- He said the virus is here to stay, and that all countries will need to learn to manage it
The World Health Organization said that Covid-19 deaths had dropped by 95 per cent since the start of the year – but warned the virus was still on the move.
The WHO said Covid-19 was here to stay and countries would have to learn how to manage its ongoing non-emergency effects, including post-Covid-19 condition, or Long Covid.
“We’re very encouraged by the sustained decline in reported deaths from Covid-19, which have dropped 95 per cent since the beginning of this year,” WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told a press conference on Wednesday.
“However, some countries are seeing increases, and over the past four weeks, 14,000 people lost their lives to this disease.
“And, as the emergence of the new XBB. 1.16 variant illustrates, the virus is still changing, and is still capable of causing new waves of disease and death.”
Maria Van Kerkhove, the WHO’s technical lead on Covid-19, said XBB sub-lineages were now dominant worldwide.