Dr Tedros at the #MSC2022 panel "Get well soon: finding a way out of the pandemic"

I’m sure when we met two years ago, when we were all coming to grips with the spread of this new virus, that none of us would have imagined we would now be entering the third year of the pandemic. So when will it end? Is it ending now? That’s one of the major questions being asked. Indeed, high vaccine coverage in some countries, combined with the lower severity of Omicron, is driving a dangerous narrative that the pandemic is over. But it’s not – not when 70 thousand people a week are dying from a preventable and treatable disease; Not when 83% of the population of Africa is yet to receive a single dose of vaccine; Not when health systems continue to strain and crack under the caseload; Not when we have a highly transmissible virus circulating almost unchecked, with too little surveillance to track its evolution. In fact, the conditions are ideal for more transmissible, more dangerous variants to emerge. But we can end the pandemic as a global health emergency this year. We have the tools. We have the know-how.Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/depictions-media--4208927/support.