The Covid-19 virus «isn't going anywhere. It is here to stay, and all countries will have to learn to deal with it along with other respiratory diseases,» the WHO warns.
The World Health Organization (WHO) hopes that Covid-19 and monkeypox will cease to be global public health emergencies in 2023, when both diseases will have completed their most dangerous phase.
WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Gebreyesus said one of the key lessons of the Covid-19 pandemic is that countries must respond quickly to unexpected outbreaks. He added that the number of weekly deaths from Covid-19 is now about one-fifth of what it was a year ago.
"Last week less than 10,000 people died. That's still 10,000 too many, and there's still a lot all countries can do to save lives," he said at a news conference. "But we've come a long way. We hope that at some point next year we will be able to say that Covid-19 is no longer a global health emergency," the WHO chief.
"This virus is not going anywhere. It's going to stay here, and all countries are going to have to learn to deal with it along with other respiratory diseases," Gebreyesus said.