“I am sure that at some point this year we will be able to say that COVID-19 has ended as a public health emergency of international concern and as a pandemic,” Ghebreyesus said.

He noted that lessons must be learned from the pandemic.

On February 19, the head of the office of the Foreign Affairs Commission of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China, a member of the Politburo, Wang Yi, said that China had successfully overcome the coronavirus pandemic.