WHO sets up committee to re-examine COVID-19 emergency status.

The World Health Organisation has set up a committee to re-examine COVID-19 status globally.

While disclosing this on Tuesday July 28, 2020, the WHO’s Chief, Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, stated that the COVID-19 committee would meet later this week to discuss COVID-19’s emergency status, six months after it was declared.

Dr Tedros said that the committee would meet to reexamine the declaration made about the outbreak constituting a “public health emergency of international concern”.

He added that the PHEIC declaration must be reevaluated every 6 months.

There is little doubt that the emergency committee will consider that the pandemic still constitutes a global public health emergency, but it could potentially alter some of its recommendations on how the WHO and the world should respond.

“The situation has shifted dramatically since the declaration was made,” Tedros said

“When I declared a public health emergency of international concern on the 30th of January, there were less than 100 cases outside of China, and no deaths,” he added.

Tedros added that “COVID-19 has changed our world. It has brought people, communities and nations together, and driven them apart.”

Tedros himself has for months faced relentless attacks from US President Donald Trump, who has accused WHO of being a “puppet of China”.

Earlier this month Trump made good on his threat to begin withdrawing the US — traditionally WHO’s largest donor — from the organisation.