Some keys and questions about the covid pandemic

2023-05-05 18:40:30

With the end of the covid pandemic, declared today by the WHO, these are some keys, questions and answers about this terrible new disease: How did the virus originate? Who decides on an international public health emergency? What has been the human impact of the pandemic?

Workers at a factory in Wuhan, in the Chinese province of Hubei where the epicenter of the coronavirus pandemic was located, take their lunch break keeping the established safety distance of one and a half meters to avoid contagion of the disease. EFE/EPA/Yi Xin

Global public health has crossed a threshold today with the historic decision by the World Health Organization (WHO) that the time has come to stop considering the covid-19 pandemic as an international public health emergency. Here are some keys, questions and answers about the pandemic.

With this decision -taken 1,221 days after that emergency declaration, on January 31, 2020- it is also recognized that the SARS-CoV-2 virus in its different variants will remain among us as an endemic disease, which will continue to cause infections and in certain cases deaths.

Keys and questions of the pandemic

How did the virus originate?

The first time the coronavirus that causes covid-19 was identified, the clues pointed to an animal market in Wuhan (China).

It was suspected that close contact between people who worked in that facility with an animal that would have served as a “viral reservoir” (first there was talk of armadillos and more recently raccoon dogs) had facilitated the jump of the pathogen to humans.

As the months went by, suspicions arose that China was hiding information about the origin of the virus and it was suggested that another hypothesis to investigate was the eventual leak of the virus from a laboratory located in that same city.

China rejected the accusations of a lack of transparency and through official channels began to put forward the idea that the virus originated outside the country and was brought there by foreigners, from where it had spread.

The WHO faced credibility problems because it chose the path of collaboration rather than confrontation with China, but in recent months the WHO director-general and his staff have taken a more critical tone towards China, following evidence of it does not share all the data it has.

As a consequence, three and a half years after the start of the pandemic, it is still not really known how it started and how it reached humans.

Who decides on an international public health emergency?

After the appearance of the new virus, of which China notified for the first time at the end of 2019, the Emergency Committee for Covid-19 was formed, a team of 17 recognized experts in different branches of science from different countries and whose mission has been to evaluate the evolution of covid-19 and recommend measures to the director general of the WHO.

The latter, however, always has the last word as to whether or not to follow what is suggested by the group of experts.

That committee met for the first time on January 22, 2022, and eight days later, on its advice, the WHO declared an international public health emergency.

After that decision, the committee has met every three months to review the situation and has maintained that same recommendation until today, when it has considered that it is time to move on to “a transition phase”, as explained by its president, the French professor of medicine, Didier Houssin.

EFE/EPA/Martial Trezzini

What has been the human impact of the pandemic?

The SARS-CoV-2 virus has caused nearly 765 million infections in the world and although officially the deaths reported by the countries are 6.9 million, the WHO considers that the deaths caused directly or indirectly by this disease reach 20 million. .

Based on official WHO figures, which only reflect deaths attributed to covid-19 or its complications, America was the continent with the highest mortality, with a total of 2.95 million deaths.

The two countries with the highest mortality worldwide belong to the Americas: the United States, with 1.16 million deaths; and Brazil, with more than 700,000. Mexico is in fifth place, with 333,000 deaths; and Peru, in seventh place and 220,000 deaths.

In Europe, deaths reached 2.23 million, in Southeast Asia there were 805,000 (531,000 in India), while in the Western Pacific region, which includes China in the WHO geographical distribution, deaths rose to 410,000.

The Western Mediterranean, which includes the Middle East, reported 351,000 deaths, while Africa reported 175,000, according to the organization’s tally.

ICU of the Marquis de Valdecilla University Hospital of Santander during the coronavirus pandemic. EFE/Peter Bridge Holes