The World Health Organization (WHO) on Friday announced it was ending its declaration of COVID-19 as a public health emergency of international concern, more than three years after it was first declared.

“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. This trend has allowed most countries to return to life as we knew it before COVID-19,” WHO DIrector-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said in a press briefing Friday.

“Yesterday, the emergency committee met for the 15th time and recommended to me that I declare an end to the public health emergency of international concern. I have accepted that advice,” he said. “It is therefore with great hope that I declare COVID-19 over as a global health emergency.”

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