Virus vigilance required despite easings: experts

In a statement released on Wednesday, the World Health Organization announced that the COVID-19 pandemic remains a "public health emergency of international concern", a day before WHO statistics showed that the global caseload passed the 500 million threshold.

Despite such circumstances, some nations have still chosen to lift their restrictions due to the gloomy economic outlook, insufficient policy implementation and general fatigue in fighting the virus.

Experts have raised the alarm that the pandemic is far from over, as the COVID-19 maze has yet to be completely solved.

Since last November when the Omicron strain was first identified, the world's caseload almost doubled in less than six months, with more than 1 million deaths－roughly equivalent to the population of a medium-sized city.

This partly explained why the WHO said in the statement that the COVID-19 virus "is continuing to cause high levels of morbidity and mortality, particularly among vulnerable human populations".

In the United States, about 80 million cases have been logged and the national death toll is close to 1 million. India and Brazil are next with confirmed cases exceeding 43 million and 30 million respectively, according to WHO data.

Though recent updates indicate a decreasing trend in new cases and deaths, over 7 million cases and 22,000 deaths were reported during the week of April 4-10, causing unbearable losses to numerous families.

These trends should be interpreted with caution, the WHO said, as several countries adjust their testing strategies, which has resulted in lower numbers of tests performed and cases detected.

Despite a reduction in severity, the massive increases in Omicron infections have led to large hospitalization numbers and greater pressure on healthcare systems.

Worldwide, it is a shared goal to contain the COVID-19 spread and reduce its threats to humans. But after rounds of efforts without coming to a workable solution, some have decided to drop their restrictions, including those on travel, socializing, mask-wearing, testing and vaccination. As a result, COVID-19 cases and deaths surged once again.

Anthony Fauci, the US' top infectious disease expert, has recently said that he expects "an uptick in cases" over the next few weeks due to the BA.2 Omicron subvariant in the US, where states and cities have moved to lift restrictions, and when the subvariant is about 50 to 60 percent more transmissible than the first Omicron strain.

The US is now averaging about 30,000 new cases, 500 deaths and 1,400 hospitalizations every day, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Health experts said rolling back COVID-19 mitigation measures may have come too soon, and the continued rise in confirmed cases poses a higher risk to the public, especially children and immunocompromised groups.

The European Union is trapped in a similar plight, as several members have scrapped most curbs, relying on vaccinations to reach "collective immunity".

Encouraging signs

Encouragingly, vaccination rates in some parts of the world keep rising and a downward trend has been observed in new infections and deaths. However, it may not yet be time to get too optimistic.

The British government's Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies believed that the pandemic is not yet over, adding that there is considerable uncertainty about the path that the pandemic will now take in Britain.

Emphasizing the need to wear masks for self-protection, Italian immunologist Antonella Viola told the newspaper Corriere della Sera that reinfection is another problem that cannot be ignored.

For now, scientists still have a long way to go in painting a more complete picture of the COVID-19 virus, its variants and subvariants. But it is clear that the more rampant it runs, the more havoc it will cause around the world.

Countries that followed the "zero-COVID" playbook have done better on every measure, from death rates to economic growth, according to a report by New Scientist magazine.

"If the target of 'zero-COVID' is now being ditched, does that mean it was a failure? A crude answer would be: only if you think saving lives and preserving economic growth constitutes a misstep," said the report.

Xinhua