COVID-19 is still with us even as WHO says it is no longer a global emergency: Duclos – CTV
May 8, 2023
OTTAWA – COVID-19 isn’t over even after the World Health Organization declared Friday that the illness no longer qualifies as a global emergency, Canada’s Health Minister Jean-Yves Duclos said.
The declaration made the WHO in Geneva is a symbolic end to the devastating coronavirus pandemic that triggered once-unthinkable lockdowns, upended economies and killed millions of people worldwide.
Duclos said it’s a good sign but COVID-19 still must be taken seriously and its lasting impact on our health care system is still playing out.
“This is the end of an emergency, this is not the end of the threat,” he said, speaking to reporters at the Liberal policy convention in Ottawa. “COVID-19 is still with us.”
Duclos said about 60,000 Canadians have died of COVID-19, and there are still people dying from it, though in much lower numbers than before.
Health Canada’s COVID-19 dashboard reported that during the seven days ending May 2, 84 people in Canada died of COVID-19. In the early months of the pandemic the weekly death total exceeded 1,300 in May 2020.
