After three years, the World Health Organization (WHO) on May 5, has declared an end to the emergency phase of the COVID-19 pandemic, days before a similar emergency in the United States was also set to expire. This is likely to usher the world into a new phase of disease monitoring with a scaling back of surveillance and available resources to fight COVID-19. WHO said the decision did not mean the danger was over, and cautioned that the emergency status could be reinstated if the situation changes. The virus was first detected in late 2019 in Wuhan China, but it remains unclear how and where it first began spreading among humans. Beijing stands accused of obstruction and has ignored repeated WHO requests for more access and information to help solve the mystery. WHO belatedly recommended the Public Health Emergency of Concern(PHEIC) on January 30,2020 after the virus broke out in China. Since the start of the pandemic 3 years ago, WHO has recorded close to 7 million deaths from COVID-19, though the real death toll from the pandemic may be three times that. A few thousand deaths are still being reported to the agency every week, and some models estimate that excess mortality is still at about 10,000 deaths a day worldwide. One thing is for sure about SARS-CoV-2, that the virus that causes COVID-19, is changing constantly. Since the beginning of the pandemic, there have been a number of prominent variants, including Alpha, Beta, Delta, and Omicron. Variants of viruses occur when there is a change \u2014 or mutation \u2014 to the virus\u2019s genes. In another report, a virus called Florona is said to occur after \u201cdouble infection\u201d or \u201cco-infection\u201d with both SARS-CoV-2 and the flu virus. The case was detected in an unvaccinated pregnant woman who had been admitted to a medical centre. Now, scientists worry that that Covid infection transmitting between species can give rise to new variants. The study also found that proliferative viruses can be spread through dogs\u2019 nasal discharge. The researchers suggest that pet vaccinations should be actively considered to prevent animal-to-human infection. A variant of interest is a coronavirus variant that, compared with earlier forms of the virus, has genetic characteristics that predict greater transmissibility, evasion of immunity or diagnostic testing, or more severe disease. A variant of concern has been observed to be more infectious, and is more likely to cause breakthrough infections or reinfections in those who are vaccinated or previously infected. These variants are more likely to cause severe disease, evade diagnostic tests, or resist antiviral treatment. Alpha, beta, gamma, delta and omicron variants of the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus are classified as variants of concern. Omicron\u2019s subvariants are considered to be especially efficient spreaders of the disease, and while scientists are still learning about XBB.1.5, they say it is the most transmissible strain of the virus so far. The original strain of Omicron was more transmissible than Delta was. Virologists say that it\u2019s entirely possible that yet another variant could emerge. Immunity seems to decline after a number of months, but at the same time, scientists hope that boosters dramatically improve immunity.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
After three years, the World Health Organization (WHO) on May 5, has declared an end to the emergency phase of the COVID-19 pandemic, days before a similar emergency in the United States was also set to expire. This is likely to usher the world into a new phase of disease monitoring with a scaling back […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[685],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-347191","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-editorial"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nagalandpost.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/347191","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nagalandpost.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nagalandpost.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nagalandpost.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nagalandpost.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=347191"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/nagalandpost.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/347191\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nagalandpost.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=347191"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nagalandpost.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=347191"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nagalandpost.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=347191"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}