The head of the World Health Organization said the agency is likely to declare an end to the coronavirus pandemic later this year as case numbers and related deaths keep declining.
“I am confident that this year we will be able to say that COVID-19 is over as a public health emergency of international concern,” WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said at a media briefing Friday. “We are certainly in a much better position now than we have been at any time during the pandemic.”
Tedros made his comments as statistics reveal the weekly number of reported coronavirus deaths over a four-week period was lower than when WHO declared the virus a global pandemic three years ago.
In the U.S., coronavirus-related statistics have fluctuated over the past three years as different strains take hold, but the number of deaths and infections are now trending downward.
A Centers for Disease Control and Prevention chart shows there were 1,706 weekly deaths as of March 15, the lowest weekly total since 1,119 on the week of March 25, 2020, near the start of the pandemic. The highest weekly total was reported on Jan. 13, 2021, when there were more than 23,000 logged deaths.
Hospitalization rates and coronavirus cases are down presently but not at pandemic lows. Nevertheless, the Biden administration plans to declare the public health emergency over on May 11.
WHO officials report more than 760 million coronavirus cases throughout the world with more than 6.8 million virus-related deaths. The U.S. has more cases (102 million) and deaths (1.1 million) than any other nation.