But warns danger still exists, cautions countries not to let guard down

GENEVA, Switzerland—The Covid-19 pandemic, which for over three years has killed millions of people, wreaked economic havoc and deepened inequalities, no longer constitutes a global health emergency, the WHO said Friday.

It is “with great hope that I declare Covid-19 over as a global health emergency”, WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told reporters, estimating that the pandemic had killed “at least 20 million” people -- nearly three times the under seven million deaths officially recorded.

The move came after the WHO’s independent emergency committee on the Covid crisis agreed during its 15th meeting on Thursday that the crisis no longer merited the organisation’s highest level of alert.

But, Tedros warned, the decision did not mean the danger was over, cautioning that the