covid-19

The World Health Organisation (WHO) Emergency Committee met on 4 May to assess whether covid-19 could continue to be considered a health emergency of international concern (PHEIC). The organisation's director general, Tedros Adhanom, has followed its recommendation and ended the emergency declared on 30 January 2020. "It is with great hope that I declare that covid-19 has ended as a global health emergency. However, this does not mean that covid-19 is no longer a threat to global health. Last week, it claimed one life every three minutes, and that's just the deaths we know about," he told a press conference.

Research published in the journal Frontiers in Public Health has measured the relationship between restrictions in different settings - such as leisure and catering - taken in Spain between September 2020 and May 2021, with covid-19 transmission. The authors conclude that, overall, increased restrictions decreased disease transmission.

The European Medicines Agency (EMA) has licensed Hipra's vaccine - currently called Bimervax - against SARS-CoV-2 as a booster in people aged 16 years and older who have previously been vaccinated with mRNA vaccines. The EMA began the ongoing evaluation of the vaccine, which was expected to be approved in the middle of last year, on 29 March 2022.

A French researcher has found genetic data showing that raccoon dogs, civets and other mammals susceptible to the infection with SARS-CoV-2 in the early 2020s in the Wuhan market in China. The findings have been presented to the Scientific Advisory Group on the Origin of Emerging Pathogens (SAGO), an expert group convened last year by the World Health Organisation. The data, collected by a team of Chinese scientists, were held in a database called GISAID, but had not been publicly reported and have been withdrawn. SAGO explained the origin of this data and the history of this research in a statement on 18 March.

In an interview with US television FOX News, FBI Director Christopher Wray said that, according to his office's assessment, "it is likely that the origin of the coronavirus pandemic was a leak from a laboratory in Wuhan, China". These statements follow media reports of a US Department of Energy report, accessed by the Wall Street Journal, that would also support "with low confidence" the leak hypothesis. Even so, a spokesman for the US National Security Council told AP that there is "no consensus" among intelligence agencies on the issue.

A meta-analysis of 42 studies from 15 countries, including Spain, concludes that the covid-19 pandemic caused learning delays in school-aged children and a loss of knowledge equivalent to 35% of the learning of a school year. The research, published in Nature Human Behaviour, highlights that these effects persisted over time.

The World Health Organisation's (WHO) International Health Regulations Committee on Emergencies has decided to maintain the covid-19 pandemic as a Public Health Emergency of International Concern (PHEIC) after meeting last Friday.

The rate of death by suicide in Spain has increased between 2018 and 2021, according to a report presented today by the Complutense University of Madrid, the Centre for Biomedical Research in Mental Health Network (CIBERSAM) and the Hospital del Mar in Barcelona, which points to the influence of the pandemic in this increase. In 2021, a total of 4,003 people died from this cause, 5.5% more than in 2018. During the pandemic, mortality by suicide was greater among people living in large cities and provincial capitals. The report, which includes data from 2000 to 2021, also shows the increase in deaths by suicide that occurred during the period of the economic crisis, from 2008 to 2014.

In the last few days, several media have published that the end of the obligatory use of face masks in public transport is near. According to today's Vozpópuli, the Alerts Committee is expected to approve the change from compulsory to recommended use next week.

The Minister of Health, Carolina Darias, announced today at a press conference that in view of the increase in cases of covid-19 in China following the end of the covid zero policy, Spanish airports are going to require passengers arriving from that country to take a negative test for covid-19 or a complete vaccination schedule. The first flight affected by health control measures will arrive at Adolfo Suárez Madrid-Barajas Airport at 18:00 on 31 December.