Even though some cities or states in India may have begun to see a plateauing of Covid-19 cases, the risk persists, senior WHO official Poonam Khetrapal Singh said. Singh said that the risk of Covid-19 remains high and no country, irrespective of their current transmission scenario, is “out of the woods” yet. “We need to continue to remain vigilant. Our focus must be on reducing transmission.

Implementing situation-specific public health and social measures and increasing vaccine coverage—that’s the way forward for all countries in the ongoing pandemic,” Singh said. Asked if the pandemic is entering endemic stages, Singh said, currently “we are still in the midst of the pandemic and the focus should be to curtail the virus spread and save lives”. “Becoming endemic doesn’t mean that the virus will not be a cause for concern,” she said.