WHO creates plan to exit the emergency phase of the pandemic

The World Health Organization (WHO) released on Wednesday (30) an updated plan for Covid-19, setting out important strategies that, if implemented in 2022, will allow the world to emerge from the emergency phase of the pandemic.

The plan includes three possible scenarios for how the virus could evolve over the next year.

“From what we now know, the most likely scenario is that the Covid-19 virus will continue to evolve, but the severity of the disease it causes will reduce over time as immunity increases through vaccination and infections,” he said. said WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus during a briefing.

In this baseline scenario, which serves as a working model for the WHO, the virus causes fewer severe outbreaks, with periodic increases in transmission numbers as immunity declines. Booster shots may be needed for those most at risk. The virus can certainly go into a seasonal pattern, with peaks in the colder months, just like influenza.

In the WHO’s best-case scenario, future variants would be “significantly less severe”, and protection from serious illness would be long-lasting, without the need for future booster doses or significant changes to current vaccines.

In the worst case scenario, the virus morphs into a new, highly transmissible and deadly threat. In such a scenario, vaccines would be less effective and immunity to severe illness and death would rapidly decline, which would require significant changes to current vaccines and a broad campaign of doses of immunity for the most vulnerable groups.

To help get out of the emergency phase, the WHO urged countries to maintain or increase their surveillance capabilities for the virus, in order to be alert to early signs of changes in the virus. The entity also called for the improvement of detection skills for long-term Covid, to track and reduce long-term consequences after the end of the pandemic.