Despite declaring the pandemic over, the World Health Organization says it’s ‘impossible’ to eradicate the virus itself
Covid-19 will never be eliminated or eradicated because it can jump from humans to animals and back again, Dr. Mike Ryan, director of emergencies at the World Health Organization, told reporters on Saturday.
The remarks came a day after WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus officially downgraded the status of the disease from a global health emergency to an emergency “Global Health Threats”, Ryan stressed that public health authorities still need to “Watchful.”
Asked if the virus itself would be eradicated, Ryan replied “No, I don’t believe it.”
“What we’re seeing here is a rapidly evolving virus,” He elaborates. “It can transfer from humans to animals and from animals to humans, so it can hide in different spaces…not just humans. It’s hard to think about eradicating or eliminating.”
Ryan added that vaccines and therapeutics could eliminate “Public Health Threats Associated with Viruses,” But eradicating the virus itself is “Very unlikely, if not impossible.”
The WHO has largely stuck to this line throughout the pandemic, despite claims by vaccine proponents that vaccinations will stop the spread of Covid-19, which has proven to be untrue. “Under the current circumstances, it is unlikely that we will eradicate this virus,” Ryan said so at a briefing in May 2020, four months after the WHO first declared the virus a public health emergency.
Ryan said Saturday that he expects infections in the northern hemisphere to continue to surge every winter, just like the flu or any other seasonal disease.However, he did not rule out the possibility that new variants of the virus could emerge in the summer “And caused a lot of transmission.”
While most countries have abandoned pandemic containment measures since early last year, the United States remains under a public health emergency that does not expire until next week. More than 1.1 million people have died from Covid-19 in the United States, more than any other country, according to World Health Organization statistics.
Globally, more than 765 million cases of Covid-19 have been recorded and nearly 7 million people have died while infected, according to the World Health Organization. As of the end of April, a total of 13 billion doses of vaccines had been administered.
