Covid-19 no longer a global emergency: WHO

The World Health Organization announcement marks a symbolic end to the devastating coronavirus pandemic that triggered once-unthinkable lockdowns, upended economies and killed millions of people worldwide.

The announcement, made more than three years after WHO declared the coronavirus an international crisis, offers some relief, if not an ending, to a pandemic that stirred fear and suspicion, hand-wringing and finger-pointing across the globe.

Covid-19 emergency over: WHO

The UN health agency’s officials said that even though the emergency phase was over, the pandemic hasn’t ended, noting recent spikes in cases in Southeast Asia and the Middle East.

WHO says thousands of people are still dying from the virus every week, and millions of others are suffering from debilitating, long-term effects.

WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said: “It’s with great hope that I declare Covid-19 over as a global health emergency. That does not mean Covid-19 is over as a global health threat.

The WHO director said he wouldn’t hesitate to reconvene experts to assess the situation should a new variant “put our world in peril.”

He noted that while the official Covid-19 death toll was 7m, the real figure was estimated to be at least 20m.

Tedros said the pandemic had been on a downward trend for more than a year, acknowledging that most countries have already returned to life before Covid-19.

He bemoaned the damage that coronavirus had done to the global community, saying the pandemic had shattered businesses, exacerbated political divisions, led to the spread of misinformation and plunged millions into poverty.