Covid-19 threat expected to become on par with flu this year, says WHO

The World Health Organization is considering downgrading covid-19 from a public health emergency of international concern, its highest level of alert, as the coronavirus is now less likely to cause serious illness or overload healthcare services

By Clare Wilson

17 March 2023

Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, director general of the World Health Organization

CYRIL ZINGARO/EPA-EFE/Shutterstock

Covid-19 is likely to be downgraded from a public health emergency of international concern this year, as it shifts to a similar level of risk as flu, according to the World Health Organization (WHO).

“We’re coming to that point where we can look at covid-19 in the same way we look at seasonal influenza,” said the WHO’s Michael Ryan at a press conference today. “A threat to health, a virus that will continue to kill. But a virus that is not disrupting our society or disrupting our hospital systems.”

WHO director general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus made the announcement at the press conference. “We’re certainly in a much better position now than we have been at any time during the pandemic,” he said.

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The WHO declared covid-19 a public health emergency of international concern, its highest level of threat, in January 2020, after coronavirus cases had been steadily rising in China and had been confirmed in 18 other countries. Two months later, the organisation said the phenomenon had become a pandemic, usually taken to mean that an illness is spreading in multiple countries, although there is no universally agreed definition.

While the coronavirus is still widely circulating, it is now less likely to cause serious illness, as most people have had it at least once, many have been vaccinated multiple times and the current omicron variants are less virulent than some past variants.

“It’s very pleasing to see that, for the first time, the weekly number of reported deaths in the past four weeks has been lower than when we first used the word ‘pandemic’ three years ago,” said Ghebreyesus. “I’m confident that, this year, we will be able to say that covid-19 is over as a public health emergency of international concern. We are not there yet.”