The World Health Organization maintains a state of maximum emergency regarding COVID-19

The World Health Organization decided on Monday to maintain the maximum state of emergency regarding the Covid-19 epidemic, three years after declaring the disease a health emergency of global proportions.The Director-General of the Health Organization, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, followed the recommendations of the Emergency Committee on Covid-19, a committee of experts that met Friday for the first time. Fourteen, according to a statement.

On January 30, 2020, the committee declared that Covid-19 constituted a “public health emergency on an international scale”, while at that time it had only recorded less than a hundred cases outside China without any deaths. Tedros had previously confirmed that raising the maximum emergency level was “premature”.

He said Tuesday during a regular press conference in Geneva, “Although I do not want to pre-empt the opinion of the emergency committee, I remain very concerned about the situation in several countries and the increasing number of deaths.”

“My message is clear: do not underestimate this virus, it has surprised us and will continue to surprise us and will continue to kill us, unless we do more to provide health facilities to those in need and to combat disinformation globally,” he added. The Director-General of the UN organization has the power to choose whether or not to follow the recommendation of the Emergency Committee.

The virus caused the death of 6,804,491 people and infected more than 752 million people as of January 27, according to the organization, but the UN agency and experts agree that the numbers are actually much higher.