«Towards normalization but attention still high»- breaking latest news

On 11 March 2020, the World Health Organization (WHO), after assessing the severity levels and global spread of SARS-CoV-2 infection, declared the COVID-19 outbreak a pandemic. Since then Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, USA, with its Coronavirus Resource Center, has constantly collected data, in real time, from the main international and national health bodies. After three years of continuous monitoring, it has now stopped updating activities, as it communicates on the official website which has had more than 2.5 billion views in these three years. The “final” budget of the institution gives account of 676,609,955 confirmed cases, 6,881,955 deaths, 13,338,833,198 vaccine doses administered worldwide. Service disruption is a sign that the pandemic is truly over? The pandemic it will be over, officially, when the World Health Organization (WHO) declares its end, or rather, as Giovanni Rezza, director general of health prevention at the Ministry of Health explains: “We have to wait for the WHO to no longer consider the Covid “Phec”, Public Health Emergency of International Concern, i.e. a public health emergency of international concern”. And it could happen in the coming weeks.

Still a global emergency but we are moving towards normalisation

As for the decision of the American Institute, comments the professor Rezza
: «Johns Hopkins no longer deems it necessary to show the data hour after hour, day after day, although it continues to monitor the situation, but this happens somewhat for all infectious diseases and reflects the situation, somewhat of normalizationwhich does not mean that there will not continue to be high attention, as long as the WHO continues to consider Covid “Phec”, even if there will no longer be the clamor and visibility of a few years ago.
Who decides that Covid (or any other disease declared “Phec”) is no longer a global health emergency? Professor Rezza explains: «To decide it is the WHO Emergency Committee, which had declared Covid at the end of January 2020 as a “Public Health Emergency of International Concern”, after which in March 2020 the WHO publicly spoke of a “pandemic”. After three years, WHO reconvened the Emergency Committee at the end of January, but the experts decided to keep the state of “Phec” why at that time there was a major epidemic in China; therefore the WHO wanted to continue to keep attention high, while stating that there is widespread population immunity since so many people are vaccinated and many others have become infected ».

Transitional phase: caution with moderate optimism

What is the situation today? “Now globally

, even considering the situation in China which has improved, the population is quite protected – says the head of the Ministry of Health -. We are currently in one “transitional” phase, as defined by WHO. So there is caution but with a good degree of optimism
o. Most likely in the next few weeksbut we don’t know when – Professor Rezza says – theWorld Health Organization will reconvene the Emergency Committee which will decide whether Covid should still be considered as “Phec”».
We are therefore cautious, even in our country. The director general of health prevention of the ministry continues: «We have witnessed what we have defined the social end of the pandemic (having very few measures left in force to contain the SARS-CoV-2 infection), however it comes still maintained a high degree of attention because in any case, for the WHO, Covid is still considered “Phec”so you have to keep it high surveillance both on cases and on possible new variants. Il ministry continues then a monitor the situationmaintaining surveillance, but at the moment there is no alarm level: the impact on healthcare facilities is very low (with a decreasing bed occupancy rate: in the medical area at 4.7%, intensive care at 1%, ndr), the incidence of new cases is relatively low (41 cases per hundred thousand inhabitants).

Be careful if you are elderly and/or “fragile”

In the weekly report of the Ministry of Healthreleased on 10 March, on the data relating to the week from 27 February to 5 March «the need to continue to adopt the individual and collective behavioral measures envisaged and/or recommended, the use of the mask, ventilation of the premises, hand hygiene and paying attention to gathering situations. The high vaccination coverage, the completion of the vaccination cycles and the maintenance of a high immune response through the booster dose, with particular regard to the categories indicated by the ministerial provisions, represent tools necessary to mitigate the clinical impact of the epidemic». Professor Rezza explains: «We have greatly reduced the number of serious cases, but attention to fragile people must be kept high, the elderly and more vulnerable individuals. To them, above all, caution is advised and vaccination is recommended».

End of update

In three years of the pandemic the Johns Hopkins University has provided, in real time, to the public, policy makers, experts from all over the world reliable information coming, among others, from WHO, the American Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the European Center for Disease Prevention and Control and many more, as well as expert analysis. The data collected on infections, deaths, vaccinations, between 22 January 2020 and 10 March 2023, will remain accessible and free on the website. Despite the utility outage, the interdisciplinary group of faculty and experts who advised and led the Coronavirus Resource Center will continue to provide analysis and guidance to the public regarding the ongoing pandemic.

Like the flu?

Comment the professor Joseph Remuzzidirector of the Mario Negri Institute: «It is right to suspend data collection because there are variants that spread so rapidly that, by the time the data is collected, everything has already changed; moreover, it is no longer possible to record all the data of the infections, since the the vast majority of people test at home, or not at all. Therefore, – continues Remuzzi – we behave as for the flu: he goes to the hospital only if he is ill, otherwise he takes care of himself at home. Certainly the serious forms of the disease are less frequent because we are vaccinated and many have had the infection; then having had both vaccination and infection has an even more protective effect ».
We can’t let our guard down just yet, though. Remuzzi explains: «There is the possibility that the virus could change, even if it cannot do so indefinitely; we must also take into account that this virus has begun to infect animals, starting with deer in the United States, and even some domestic animals. So, it still remains an unknown factor.”