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Share on Pinterest Luis Alvarez/Getty ImagesOver three years into the pandemic, public health organizations are finally saying that the emergency phase is over. The COVID public health emergency declared by U.S. officials is ending on May 11, 2023. The WHO also announced that its ending the emergency phase of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Over three years since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, public health officials in the U.S. and globally are declaring the pandemic emergency over.

The COVID public health emergency declared by U.S. officials is ending on May 11, 2023.

And the World Health Organization (WHO) announced Friday that its ending the emergency phase of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The WHO held a meeting on May 5th during which health officials discussed the decline in COVID-related hospitalizations, intensive care unit (ICU) admissions, and deaths.

The spread of COVID-19, though ongoing, no longer constitutes a public health emergency of international concern, the WHO said. How to stop COVID-19 now

The WHO then revealed a five-step plan to manage the long-term spread of COVID-19.

The plan focuses on surveillance, community protection, safe and scalable care, access to countermeasures, and emergency coordination efforts.

While acknowledging the remaining uncertainties posted by potential evolution of SARS-CoV-2, they advised that it is time to transition to long-term management of the COVID-19 pandemic, the WHO Emergency Committee on the COVID-19 Pandemic wrote in a statement.

In the U.S. the COVID-19 public health emergency ends on May 11, 2023. Starting May 12th government officials will reduce the frequency and detail in which it tracks COVID, and while vaccines, treatments, and tests will continue to be available, some of these tools may become pricier. Fewer risks with higher levels of immunity

The increase in population immunity, from both vaccination and infections, has lowered the risk of hospitalization and death from COVID.

According to the WHO, 13.3 billion doses of the vaccine have been administered around the world.

And although SARS-CoV-2 continues to evolve, recent variants dont appear to cause more severe illness.

Immunity has played a large role in this decision as the vaccine and booster continues to protect against severe illness from COVID-19 and its variants, says Bernadette Boden-Albala, the director and founding dean of University of California, Irvines Program in Public Health.

We are fortunate to be out of an acute crisis situation and our society is fatigued from the high stress period when COVID-19 transmission was at its peak, Boden-Albala added. Changes after the end of the COVID-19 emergency

Data collection and national disease surveillance at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention will change in frequency, source, or availability. However, the CDC will still have a pulse on COVID at the community level.

Surveillance will now focus on deaths, rather than cases, test positivity rates, and post-vaccination health check-ins.

Additionally the government will stop covering the costs for COVID-19 vaccines. Instead the vaccines will either be covered by peoples medical insurance or they may have to pay out of pocket.

COVID-19 at-home tests may no longer be covered by insurance after the end of the emergency declaration.The WHOs new recommendations to manage COVID-19

Declaring COVID-19 a public health emergency of international concern is essentially a communications tool the WHO utilizes to inform member states that it is time to activate their emergency response and preparedness strategies.

These declarations also typically include a set of recommendations, such as travel restrictions and increased surveillance, to prevent the spread of the pathogen.

Dr. Jan Carney, Associate Dean for Public Health and Health Policy and Professor of Medicine at the Larner College of Medicine at the University of Vermont, says health officials have known for months that the end of the WHO emergency declaration was coming.

Federal agencies and states have been preparing to transition and integrate public health and medical response to COVID-19 into existing public health and health care systems, Carney said.

Although the emergency designation has ended, COVID-19 is still circulating and the WHOs new recommendations aim to help member states enact long-term strategies to prevent, control, and manage the spread of COVID-19.

Moving forward, the WHO recommends that each region focuses on disease surveillance, preparedness for future outbreaks, access to vaccines, care, countermeasures, ongoing risk assessments, and research.

Vaccines, testing, and treatments will continue to be available, but may come at a higher cost for many individuals, particularly those without health insurance. COVID-19 is not over

As the WHO stated, each week, millions of people continue to be infected or re-infected and thousands of people are dying from COVID.

This is merely a transition to how we respond to managing COVID, not the end to COVID-19 infection, says Carney.

Meanwhile, the COVID-19 public health emergency in the U.S. ends on May 11, 2023.
There continue to be gaps and inequities in our ability to prepare and respond to new outbreaks and provide care to people.

The WHOs goal is to address these inequities and reinforce our public health foundation for future epidemics and outbreaks.

COVID-19 has not gone away. In my view, we must take this opportunity to remain vigilant and strengthen our public health and health care systems, Carney said.The bottom line:

National and global public health entities have declared the emergency phase of the COVID-19 outbreak over.

The World Health Organization (WHO) is ending the emergency phase of the COVID-19 pandemic. COVID-19 continues to spread, but recent declines in COVID-related hospitalizations and deaths due to high levels of population immunity have allowed the WHO to shift from working on emergency response plans to enacting long-term strategies to control COVID.

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How Britain’s most notorious gangster turned up at a charity lunch to fact-check a retired detective’s talk

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How Britain's most notorious gangster turned up at a charity lunch to fact-check a retired detective's talk

Britain’s most notorious gangster and the detective who pursued him have been involved in a bizarre confrontation…at a charity lunch.

Former Detective Superintendent Ian Brown was at a Kent golf club and about to give a talk on the infamous £26m Brink’s-Mat gold robbery when he was summoned from the stage by officials.

Mr Brown, who appeared on the award-winning Sky News StoryCast podcast The Hunt For The Brink’s-Mat Gold in 2019, said: “I go outside and they say ‘he’s here’ and I say ‘who’s here’ and they say that table over there in the corner, that’s Kenny Noye with a baseball cap pulled down over his head.”

Noye stabbed to death an undercover policeman during the Brink’s-Mat investigation, but was acquitted of murder, though he was jailed for handling the stolen gold.

After his release, he used a knife again in the M25 road-rage murder of motorist Stephen Cameron.

“They said what are we going to do?” said Mr Brown.

“I said are you serving food? Well, just use plastic knives.”

Former Detective Superintendent Ian Brown
Image:
Former Detective Superintendent Ian Brown. Pic: Robert Mulhern

Although Mr Brown had not personally arrested Noye over Brink’s-Mat he had identified him as a suspect months after the robbery.

Years later he met him during an ill-fated TV interview in which he quizzed him about his role in the robbery.

He said: “He told me everything I wanted to know except the truth. He still insists he had nothing to do with it.”

The interview was never broadcast after the prison authorities threatened to send Noye back to jail for a breach of his parole.

Read more:
What happened to the Brink’s-Mat gold?

Kenneth Noye and Stephen Cameron
Image:
Kenneth Noye, left, and Stephen Cameron

Mr Brown, 86, said: “I went over to him and said ‘thanks for coming, nice of you to pop in’, but I don’t believe you’ve turned up with your sons and grandkids to listen to me telling how you killed a police officer.

“And he said ‘I want to make sure you don’t say I’ve been dealing drugs’ and I said ‘I’ve never said that Kenny’.”

The retired detective told Noye he wasn’t going to change his presentation just because he was there.

“He said ‘mate, I wouldn’t expect you to and I’ll come up [on stage] if you want me to’.

“Can you think how he’s turned up with his family to listen to somebody talking about you killing the police? Now, you put logic on that.”

The bizarre story emerged when I rang Mr Brown after I’d been told about the meeting.

A series of podcast documentaries from Sky News, telling compelling and unheard real life stories from around the UK.
Image:
A Sky News podcast told the story of the Brink’s-Mat heist in 2019

I also wanted to ask him about the recent BBC hit drama series The Gold which retold the story of the Brink’s-Mat heist at Heathrow Airport in 1983.

“It was an absolute shambles, far too much dramatic licence and the real story was so much better,” said the ex-detective, whose job had been to follow the trail of the 6,800 gold bars to the US and the Caribbean.

He said he chatted to one of the show’s writers for a long time in a phone call but then heard no more.

“They invented people, changed a bit here and there and made it politically correct in so many ways. I’m just very sad that that is what people will believe.

“And I couldn’t work out who my character was supposed to be. I could have been one of the female cops.”

He also criticised the portrayal of Noye, now 78, as a likeable jack-the-lad character when the truth about the double killer with a volatile temper was quite different.

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L.A. routed 18-1 in worst loss at Dodger Stadium

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L.A. routed 18-1 in worst loss at Dodger Stadium

LOS ANGELES — The Los Angeles Dodgers suffered their worst loss ever in Dodger Stadium, an 18-1 blowout at the hands of the Houston Astros on Friday night in the series opener of a matchup between division leaders.

The 17-run loss marked the Dodgers’ largest margin of defeat at home since the team moved to Dodger Stadium in 1962, and the franchise’s worst home loss since July 3, 1947, when Brooklyn lost 19-2 to the New York Giants.

Jose Altuve homered twice while reaching base five times and driving in five runs for the Astros, who held the defending World Series champion Dodgers to six hits including Will Smith‘s solo homer.

“That was one you want to flush as soon as possible,” Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said. “I don’t think there were many positives from this night.”

Dodgers fans relentlessly booed Altuve throughout his at-bats, chanting, “Cheater! Cheater!” He’s one of two players, along with Lance McCullers Jr., remaining from Houston’s 2017 team that beat the Dodgers in the World Series. It later came out that the Astros were stealing signs with the help of video and relaying pitches to batters by banging on a trash can.

The AL West-leading Astros scored 10 runs in the sixth, highlighted by Victor Caratini‘s grand slam and Altuve’s three-run shot. It was the most runs given up in an inning by the Dodgers since April 23, 1999, when they allowed 11 to St. Louis.

McCullers (2-3) allowed one run and four hits in six innings of his second start since returning from a sprained right foot. He struck out four.

Isaac Paredes hit his first career leadoff homer on the first pitch of the game from rookie Ben Casparius. Altuve doubled and scored on Christian Walker‘s RBI single for a 2-0 lead.

Jake Meyers doubled leading off the third and scored on Altuve’s 14th homer. Rookie Cam Smith doubled and scored on Walker’s 417-foot shot halfway up the left-field pavilion to cap four straight hits given up by Casparius and extend Houston’s lead to 6-1.

“I don’t think Ben was good tonight,” Roberts said. “It seemed like they were on everything he threw up there.”

The Astros broke it open in the sixth. Smith had a bases-loaded RBI single, reliever Noah Davis hit Walker with two strikes on him to force in a run and Caratini hit his slam with no outs. Meyers added an RBI single, and Altuve hit his second homer of the night.

Casparius allowed six runs and nine hits in three innings and struck out three.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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Raleigh ties M’s record with 35 HRs before break

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Raleigh ties M's record with 35 HRs before break

SEATTLE — Cal Raleigh hit his 34th and 35th home runs to set a career high and match Ken Griffey Jr.’s Seattle record for homers before the All-Star break, helping the Mariners beat the Pittsburgh Pirates 6-0 on Friday.

Raleigh, the major league leader in home runs, turned on a fastball from Bailey Falter (6-4) in the first inning and walloped it well past the wall in left. The exit velocity on the two-run shot was logged at 115.2 mph, per Statcast, making it the hardest-hit ball of his career.

Raleigh topped his previous career high for homers, set last season, in the sixth with a solo shot that chased Falter. The Mariners mustered only one other hit off the left-hander, but it was also a home run courtesy of Randy Arozarena in the fourth inning.

Raleigh’s 35 homers are tied for the fifth most in MLB history before the All-Star break (since 1933), matching Griffey in 1998 and Luis Gonzalez in 2001. Barry Bonds holds the record with 39 at the break in 2001.

Raleigh said he was honored to tie Griffey, whom he called the face of the Mariners.

“To be mentioned with that name, somebody that’s just iconic, a legend, first-ballot Hall of Famer, I’m just blessed,” Raleigh said. “Trying to do the right thing and trying to keep it rolling. If I can try to be like that guy, it’s a good guy to look up to.”

Raleigh is on pace to hit 65 home runs this season, which would break New York Yankees star Aaron Judge‘s American League record of 62, set in 2022.

Manager Dan Wilson, who was a teammate of Griffey Jr.’s in 1998, tried to put Raleigh’s fast start to 2025 in perspective.

“It’s remarkable. It feels like he hits a home run every game, that’s what it feels like,” Wilson said. “And I can remember feeling it as a player, that [Griffey] just felt like he hit a home run every day. Again, that’s the consistency that [Raleigh] has shown. It hasn’t been a streak where he has hit a bunch of home runs in a short amount of time. It’s been kind of 10 per month.”

A switch-hitter, Raleigh has more home runs as a left-handed hitter and as a right-handed hitter than anyone else on the Mariners: He has 21 from the left side and 14 from the right. Arozarena ranks second on Seattle with 13 homers this season.

The Mariners play eight more games before the All-Star break.

The Associated Press and ESPN Research contributed to this report.

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