The global health agency’s Emergency Committee met on Thursday and recommended the UN organization declare an end to the coronavirus crisis as a “public health emergency of international concern” – its highest level of alert – which has been in place since Jan. 30, 2020.

“It is therefore with great hope that I declare COVID-19 over as a global health emergency,” said WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, adding that the end of the emergency did not mean COVID was over as a global health threat.

During a lengthy conference call to brief the press on the decision, some WHO members became emotional as they urged countries to reflect on lessons learned during the pandemic.

“We can’t forget those fire pyres. We can’t forget the graves that were dug. None of us up here will forget them,” said WHO’s technical lead on COVID-19 Maria Van Kerkhove.

The COVID death rate has slowed from a peak of more than 100,000 people per week in January 2021 to just over 3,500 in the week to April 24, 2023, according to WHO data, reflecting widespread vaccination, availability of better treatments and a level of population immunity from prior infections.

Ending the emergency could mean that international collaboration or funding efforts are also brought to an end or shift in focus, although many have already adapted as the pandemic receded in different regions.

“The battle is not over. We still have weaknesses and those weaknesses that we still have in our system will be exposed by this virus or another virus. And it needs to be fixed,” said the WHO’s emergencies director Michael Ryan.

The WHO does not declare the beginning or end of pandemics, although it did start using the term for COVID in March 2020.

“In most cases, pandemics truly end when the next pandemic begins,” Ryan said.

Last year, U.S. President Joe Biden said the pandemic was over. Like a number of other countries, the world’s biggest economy has begun dismantling its domestic state of emergency for COVID, which officially ends May 11, meaning it will stop paying for vaccines and testing for many people and shift responsibility to the commercial market.

The European Union also said in April last year that the emergency phase of the pandemic was over, and other regions have taken similar steps.

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This year, we will celebrate the 42nd edition of World Tourism Day 2022 on Tuesday. The official celebration of the event is scheduled to be held in Bali, Indonesia.The theme of World Tourism Day 2022 is ‘Rethinking Tourism’. Everyone will focus on understanding the growth of the tourism sector and reviewing and redeveloping tourism after the COVID-19 pandemic.

The World Tourism Organisation (UNWTO) started World Tourism Day in 1979. The celebrations for the same officially began in 1980. It is celebrated on September 27, every year because the date marks the anniversary of the adoption of the Statutes of UNWTO. In 1997, UNWTO decided that the day would be celebrated in different host countries each year.

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The Multiplex Association of India (MAI) and many cinemas across India have priced movie tickets at just Rs 75 at all 4000+ screens of participating cinemas to celebrate National Cinema Day on September 23.

This will include cinema screens of PVR, Inox, Cinepolis, Carnival, Miraj, City Pride, Asian, Mukta A2, Movie Time, Wave, M2K, Delite and many others, the official release read.

National Cinema Day is scheduled to be celebrated as a ‘thank you’ to the moviegoers and an invitation to those who haven’t made it back to the cinema after the Covid-19 pandemic.

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On this day, in 1882, Dr Robert Koch announced that he had discovered the bacterium that causes TB, which opened the way towards diagnosing and curing of this disease.

TB remains one of the world’s deadliest infectious killers. Each day, over 4,100 people lose their lives to TB and close to 28,000 people fall ill with this preventable and curable disease. Global efforts to combat TB have saved an estimated 66 million lives since the year 2000. However, the COVID-19 pandemic has reversed years of progress made in the fight to end TB. For the first time in over a decade, TB deaths increased in 2020.

The theme of World TB Day 2022 – ‘Invest to End TB. Save Lives.’ – conveys the urgent need to invest resources to ramp up the fight against TB and achieve the commitments to end TB made by global leaders. This is especially critical in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic that has put End TB progress at risk, and to ensure equitable access to prevention and care in line with WHO’s drive towards achieving Universal Health Coverage.

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