Spain is spearheading calls for governments to start tackling Covid-19 as any other endemic respiratory virus like seasonal flu, despite WHO opposition and warnings that the approach is premature, IgbereTV reports.
With governments and populations worldwide desperate for an end to the pandemic, discussion about when the virus might be reclassified has intensified.
“Spain wants to lead this debate because it is timely and necessary to do so,” Health Minister Carolina Darias has said, adding that Spain asked the European Centre for Disease Prevention (ECDC) to “study new strategies” to deal with Covid.
Spain is in a good position to open the debate, having one of the world’s highest vaccination rates with 90.5 per cent of its population over the age of 12 fully immunised.
But the question has sparked disagreement between governments seeking some sort of normality and some parts of the medical community which advocate keeping its guard up.
Spain’s left-wing government has been a prominent advocate of reclassifying Covid as an endemic disease with milder seasonal outbreaks that humanity can live with, like the flu.
