An unprecedented chapter in global public health has drawn to a close — at least according to international and U.S. public health officials. The seemingly interminable thrall of the COVID-19 pandemic, which held the world in a state of alarm for three harrowing years, is being declared over.
As of this month, public health organizations around the world have been called upon by the World Health Organization to end their pandemic public health emergencies.
“For more than a year the pandemic has been on a downward trend,” WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said. “This trend has allowed most countries to return to life as we knew it before COVID-19.”
Yet some public health experts attest that the declaration belies public health data — which suggest not only that novel mutations of the SARS-CoV-2 virus which causes COVID-19 are still spreading in pockets around the world, but also that the US has yet to recover in the true definition of the word.
