WHO declares end to Covid global public health emergency

The spread of Covid-19 is no longer a global public health emergency, the World Health Organization declared on Friday.

“For more than a year, the pandemic has been on a downward trend with population immunity increasing from vaccination and infection, mortality decreasing, and the pressure on health systems easing,” WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said at a press conference in Geneva.

“This trend has allowed most countries to return to life as we knew it before Covid-19,” Tedros said.

“It’s therefore with great hope that I declared Covid-19 over as a global health emergency,” he said.

Nearly 7 million people have died from the virus worldwide since the WHO first declared the emergency on January 30, 2020, according to the U.N. organization’s official data. Tedros said the the true death toll is at least 20 million.

The WHO’s decision comes as the U.S. is set to end its national public health emergency on May 11.

Tedros said there is still a risk that new variant could emerge and cause another surge in cases. He warned national governments against dismantling the systems they have built to fight the virus.

“This virus is here to stay. It’s still killing and it’s still changing,” he said.

But the WHO head said it is now time for countries to transition from an emergency response to managing Covid like other infectious disease.

This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.