The World Health Organization says the coronavirus is still a global health emergency.

The WHO’s emergency committee agreed that COVID-19 remains a dangerous infectious disease with the capacity to cause substantial damage to health and health systems but said the pandemic may be nearing an “inflexion point” where higher levels of immunity can lower deaths related to the virus.

WHO’s Director General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told the annual meeting “there is no doubt that we’re in a far better situation now” than a year ago when the highly transmissible Omicron variant was at its peak.

From the statement on the fourteenth meeting of the International Health Regulations Emergency Committee regarding the COVID-19 pandemic which was released today.

“The Committee acknowledged that, while the Omicron sub-lineages currently circulating globally are highly transmissible, there has been a decoupling between infection and severe disease when compared to earlier variants of concern. However, the virus retains an ability to evolve into new variants with unpredictable characteristics.”

On Friday Canada’s Chief public health officer said regardless of what is announced, the response to COVID-19 in Canada will not change. Dr. Theresa Tam said the COVID-19 situation is relatively stable across the country.