After crippling life for over 3 years, COVID-19 global health emergency over

By Beyza Binnur Donmez

GENEVA (AA) – After heavily impacting the lives of people and economies all around the world for more than three years, the coronavirus pandemic is no longer a global health emergency.

The announcement was made by the World Health Organization (WHO) on Friday following the Emergency Committee's recommendation on Thursday.

The pandemic was declared public health emergency of international concern on Jan. 30, 2020.

Since the pandemic began in December 2019, the COVID-19 infection has caused nearly 7 million deaths, according to the WHO.

The WHO has also recorded 765.2 million confirmed cases of the disease.

The US with 103.2 million cases topped the list of the countries with the most virus cases, followed by India with 44.9 million and France with 38.9 million cases.

The other countries with the most cases include Germany (38.4 million), Brazil (37.4 million), Japan (33.7 million), South Korea (31.2 million), Italy (25.8 million), the UK (24.5 million), and Russia (22.8 million).

With 1.1 million deaths, the US again leads the countries with the highest number of deaths, followed by Brazil (701,494 deaths) and India (531,564 deaths).

The other countries with the high number of deaths include Russia (398,366), Mexico (333,908), the UK (224,106), Peru (220,122), Italy (189,738), Germany (173,044), and France (162,868).