With the end of the Omicron wave, Covid-19 will be treated like seasonal flu in Spain in the future. This is the plan of the health authorities of the Western European country. The World Health Organization reacts cautiously.
Are we at the beginning of the end of the so-called corona pandemic? If the governments and health authorities of several countries have their way, then yes. Spain is now joining this group. The Iberians want to set up a control system for Covid-19 after the Omicron wave, which is similar to that for the seasonal flu, as the daily newspaper The country reports. This means that individual cases will no longer be tracked and potentially infected people will no longer be tested, even if they have symptoms.
The government has been working on a change of strategy for “weeks”, the prime minister confirmed. This would introduce the treatment of Covid as an endemic disease. The idea would be to treat it like the flu. “I think we have the conditions to be careful and gradually develop this disease with different parameters [ähnlich denen, die für die Grippe verwendet werden] to rate”, said Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez on Monday in an interview with SER, in which he also announced that the price of antigen tests would be controlled and that 344,000 doses of antiviral medication would be bought from Pfizer.
pressure on the EU
The Executive will now discuss the policy change with the heads of the Center for Coordination of Alerts and Public Health Emergencies (CCAES) and with the Alert Committee. “It is a debate that we are already trying to initiate at European level. The Health Minister herself raised the issue with various European Health Ministers”, he added. She says it is a “necessary debate” as science provides the “answer” to ensure the population protects itself and reduces the “chances of contagion”. In addition, the lethality of the virus has fallen: from 13 percent in the first wave of the pandemic to 1 percent today.
In other words, it is necessary “to assess the evolution of Covid into an endemic disease”. The Prime Minister believes that “the peak of this sixth wave will be reached in January” and that the curve will then start to decline. The Omicron variant is more contagious but also appears to be “milder,” he added. The new system should only be introduced after this epidemic wave has subsided. Health care sources indicate that there is no definitive model yet and that they are working on different options for how cases can be counted and monitored, reported Patricia Martin.
criticism from the WHO
As the “Majorca newspaper” reported, but comes criticism from WHO Europe. They see “the time has not yet come” to declare the pandemic an endemic. One must be very careful about predicting the future while fighting a pandemic crisis. Because “this virus has surprised us more than once”, said WHO Regional Director Hans Kluge. WHO expert Catherine Smallwood also made it clear that one could by no means speak of an endemic, which is primarily characterized by a stable circulation of the virus. “We still have a lot of uncertainty,” she said. The virus develops very quickly and always presents new challenges.
However, the World Health Organization has not exactly covered itself in glory over the past two years. Especially the proximity to Bill Gates and Big Pharma repeatedly met with criticism, especially since the former is also a major investor in the pharmaceutical industry and the latter (and thus Gates himself) earns enormous sums from this “pandemic” – and this at the expense of taxpayers around the world, especially since the governments are using the experimental vaccines Buy tax money and also assume liability for vaccine damage.
