The World Health Organization (WHO) has called for caution in terms used to describe the evolution of the SARS-CoV-2 virus as its emergency committee meets next month to decide whether to maintain the maximum alert related to with COVID-19, reports AFP and News.ro.

Michael Ryan, the WHO’s director of health emergencies, expressed hope at a press conference in Geneva on Tuesday that the committee would give “positive advice” to WHO director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, who has the final say on whether there is still No. international public health emergency due to COVID-19.

On January 30, 2020, when the world recorded 100 cases of infection with Covid-19 outside of China, the WHO declared the maximum level of danger. It was only after Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus classified the situation as a “pandemic” in March 2020 that the world realized the seriousness of the health threat.

“We are not a switch to automatically switch to an endemic situation. It is much more likely that we will move (…) from a bumpy road to a more predictable model,” said Michael Ryan.

Ryan urged caution in choosing words.

Why WHO calls for caution about COVID-19

“I think there is a misunderstanding. Very often, respiratory viruses, such as influenza, do not have an endemic phase,” he emphasized. “They go from a pandemic to a very low level of activity because of possible seasonal epidemics or annual or biannual epidemics,” said Michael Ryan.

For SARS-CoV-2, which is a respiratory virus, the WHO expects it to move “into a phase of low incidence with possible peaks, especially in certain seasons when people “stay indoors and in buildings because of the cold,” Michael Ryan said. .

But he emphasized that the virus will not disappear.

“If we don’t eliminate it, the SARS-CoV-2 virus will enter the pantheon of respiratory viruses, like the flu virus” and “will continue to cause important respiratory diseases,” he warned.