The World Health Organization has declared the COVID-19 global health emergency as over, but the public health threat posed by the virus remains.

The Director-General of the WHO, Dr. Tedros Ghebreyesus, made the announcement this morning.

He says that yesterday the emergency committee met for the 15th time and recommended that he declare an end to the public health emergency of international concern.

“It is therefore with great hope that I declare COVID-19 over as a global health emergency,” he says. Ghebreyesus notes however, that while COVID is over as a global emergency it is not over as a threat. He says last week the disease claimed a life once every three minutes, and that’s only the deaths they know about.