TOPLINE
The World Health Organization on Monday warned against treating Covid-19 like the flu, countering a growing trend as governments around the world observe waves of omicron infections, drop pandemic restrictions and tell people they must learn to live with the virus.
KEY FACTS
Dr. David Nabarro, the World Health Organization’s special envoy for Covid-19, told the U.K.’s Sky News the virus is not like flu and should not be treated as such.
England is dropping face mask and Covid passport requirements this week and Prime Minister Boris Johnson said people “must learn to live with Covid in the same way we live with flu.”
Nabarro said the coronavirus is a new virus and we should treat it “as though it is full of surprises, very nasty and rather cunning.”
The statement comes as governments around the world—including Spain, the U.K., Ireland and Japan—drop restrictions and begin treating Covid-19 as an endemic illness like the flu.
However, from what people see and report to the WHO, Nabarro said it is “still a very, very dangerous virus” and criticized governments that suggest this has suddenly changed, adding that he wonders what the people making these optimistic predictions know that he and the rest of the WHO don’t.
Nabarro said Covid-19 is particularly dangerous “for people who have not been vaccinated and who’ve not been exposed to it before,” and noted it can mutate into new variants.
KEY BACKGROUND
Controversial political leaders and commentators—including former President Donald Trump, Brazil’s Jair Bolsonaro and a string of Fox News pundits—have compared Covid-19 to the flu since it first started spreading, typically to downplay the severity of the coronavirus. While some symptoms are similar and both are respiratory illnesses, Covid-19 is often more severe and kills more than flu, the impact of which is also downplayed in comparisons. Seasonal influenza kills up to 650,000 people a year and there were three influenza pandemics in the 20th century, one of which killed an estimated 50 million people. High rates of omicron infections—which reached record levels in many countries—with relatively low levels of hospitalizations and deaths compared to previous variants, has revived the comparison, with leaders like Spain’s Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez calling for a debate on whether Covid-19 should be treated as an endemic—a regular and more predictable illness—disease like flu. Sanchez confirmed reports his administration is drafting a new monitoring system where not every infection will be recorded and not everybody with symptoms will be tested. Spain’s policies are in line with reports from other countries in Europe like the U.K., but also in typically stricter regions like Asia, such as Japan.
CRUCIAL QUOTE
Dr. Anthony Fauci, the White House’s chief medical advisor, said the complete eradication—of Covid-19 is unlikely but it hopefully will settle and become one of the diseases we experience in a more manageable way like flu. “I think that’s what most people feel when they talk about in endemicity, where it is integrated into the broad range of infectious diseases that we experience,” he said last week. Smallpox is the only infectious disease that infects humans to have ever been eradicated
By Robert Hart, Forbes Staff