Opinion Express View on end of the global Covid emergency: The last three years

Last week, the WHO declared that the Covid-19 pandemic is no longer a global emergency. The announcement was expected. In March and April, case counts spiked in parts of Europe and Asia, including India. But like most outbreaks last year — except the ones in China — the latest surge shone a light on the pathogen’s declining virulence. Though the virus still kills, the global death rate has come down drastically — from 1,00,000 a week at the peak of the pandemic in January 2021 to less than 4,000 in early May. Covid infections have plunged by more than 90 per cent in the last five months and healthcare systems are no longer stressed. The possibility of a damaging new variant emerging is also remote. However, given the past unpredictability of the virus, medical authorities worldwide cannot afford to slacken on surveillance efforts, such as genome tracing. The focus should now be on the long-term management of infections, especially among the aged and those with weak immune systems.

Before Covid, the Ebola virus and coronaviruses that cause the Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) and Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS) triggered worrying epidemics. But the reach of these pathogens was limited compared to the SARS-Cov-2 which has taken nearly 7 million lives. When the WHO declared Covid a pandemic in March 2020, most experts believed that humanity was in for a long haul. Scientists in several parts of the world, however, exceeded the expectations of even the most die-hard optimist by producing vaccines in less than a year. The virus, though, continued to take a toll and exposed the healthcare deficits of several countries, including India. The most important lesson from those difficult days is that there is no alternative to investing in robust healthcare systems — this holds even for several developed countries, including the US, where poor communities, reportedly, bore the brunt of Covid’s ravages.

Advertisement

The jury is out on what caused the pandemic. However, the public health crisis has led to a long overdue conversation on zoonotic diseases — those caused by viruses that cross over to humans from animals. Changes in land use patterns mean that wild animals live closer to human habitats and conditions are rife for zoonotic events. Experts believe that warming global temperatures will result in the dispersal of wildlife and increase the chances of cross-species virus transmission. Covid has taught the world the importance of remaining on high alert to the emergence of new pathogens. The last three years have tested the acumen of scientists and policymakers. The lessons should not be lost.