- COVID-19 is no longer a global health emergency, the World Health Organization said.
- Still, the disease continues to kill 1 person globally every 3 minutes, WHO added.
The World Health Organization $4 an end to the COVID-19 global health emergency on Friday morning, acknowledging that the disease is here to stay — but still a threat that kills hundreds across the world each day.
In a $4, WHO Director-General Tedros Ghebreyesus said that while the health emergency is now over, countries will now need to shift to manage COVID-19 like other infectious diseases.
And Ghebreyesus warned that countries shouldn't ignore COVID-19.
"The worst thing any country could do now is to use this news as a reason to let down its guard, to dismantle the systems it has built, or to send the message to its people that COVID-19 is nothing to worry about," he said.
Ghebreyesus added that COVID-19 killed one person every three minutes last week — "and that's just the deaths we know about.
"This virus is here to stay. It is still killing, and it is still changing," he $4.
According to the World Health Organization, 6.9 million people have died from COVID-19 since the virus began to spread in early 2020.