'No one really wants to talk about COVID anymore,' the WHO's pandemic lead laments. But the 'worst case' possibility of a new coronavirus exists

(Credit: Stefan Wermuth—Bloomberg/Getty Images)

The pandemic is drawing to a close, World Health Organization officials said Wednesday. But they refused to rule out a plot twist that could reverse some, if not all, progress made on the disease over the past three years.

“The acute phase of the pandemic is ending,” Dr. Sylvie Briand, director of the WHO’s Epidemic and Pandemic Prevention and Preparedness program, told viewers of a global COVID webinar. She was referencing the first and often worst phase of a pandemic, during which a new virus presents a global emergency. The WHO late last month extended the COVID global health emergency status by another three months but noted that the pandemic “may be approaching an inflexion point.”