This past Friday World Health Organization director general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, said: “With great hope, I declare COVID-19 to be over as a global health crisis.” (Fabrice Coffrini/AFP through Getty Images)

The World Health Organization has lifted the Public Health Emergency of International Concern (PHEIC) for COVID-19.

In a press event on Friday Director General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told the press conference, “COVID-19 has been so much more than just a health issue, it has disrupted the economy, traveling, breaking businesses, and putting millions of people in poverty.”

He then stated that for the past year, the disease has been in an upward trend, and that “this trend has enabled many nations to return to normal the way we used to live prior to COVID-19.”

He then made the announcement: “Therefore, with great faith I declare COVID-19 over as a global health crisis.”

He also spoke about “the difficult lessons we’ve learnt,” emphasizing that “the investment we’ve made and the capacity we’ve created must not be put to be wasted. We owe it to the people who have gone missing. In order to leverage these investments, to build these capacities, to gain the lessons learned and transform this suffering into lasting and meaningful transformation. One of the most tragic aspects in COVID-19 was that it doesn’t have to be that way.”

The conclusion of this emergency declaration is nearly 3 years since Tedros made it public on January. 30th 2021. In the year 2000 it was reported that there were less than 10,000 infections of this virus with the majority of those in China.

Nearly 7 million deaths caused by COVID-19 are recorded by WHO, Tedros said. More than one million of these deaths were within the United States alone. However, Tedros stressed that “we are aware that the total is much higher with at most twenty million.”

In this time it was the time when this disease “turned the world around,” he said. However, the landscape has dramatically changed. Although new strains could be a threat, vaccinations and boosters have reduced the rate of death.

WHO has issued a public health emergency Seven times over the course of 2005. The declaration is triggered by a set of rules for responding to threats of outbreaks of disease and includes fast-tracking tests and the use of medicines.

The declaration of COVID-19 is the very first time that the WHO has declared the existence of an emergency in health worldwide after the Ebola epidemic within Congo Democratic Republic of Congo in the year 2019.

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