Endemic Covid-19 would not mean end of danger, warns WHO
- ‘What we need to do is get to low levels of disease incidence with maximum vaccination of our populations, so nobody has to die, says WHO emergencies director Michael Ryan
- He raised prospect of three to four doses being considered the full course of vaccination for enduring protection against severe Covid-19 disease
The World Health Organization on Tuesday warned against the notion that the Covid-19 pandemic becoming endemic would mean the disease was no longer dangerous.
“People talk about pandemic versus endemic,” the WHO’s emergencies director Michael Ryan told a virtual session of the World Economic Forum.
“Endemic malaria kills hundreds of thousands of people; endemic HIV; endemic violence in our inner cities. Endemic in itself does not mean good – endemic just means it’s here forever,” Ryan told the Davos Agenda round table on vaccine equity.
The rapidly spreading Omicron variant of Covid-19 is much more contagious than previous strains but seems to cause less serious disease for vaccinated people.
That has triggered a debate on the virus passing from being a pandemic to becoming endemic – with the implication that the danger will have passed.
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“What we need to do is get to low levels of disease incidence with maximum vaccination of our populations, so nobody has to die,” said Ryan. “That is the end of the emergency, in my view. That is the end of the pandemic.”