The World Health Organization on Monday renewed its declaration that the COVID-19 pandemic constitutes a public health emergency of international concern (PHEIC)—the agency’s highest level of alert—but acknowledged that the 3-year-old crisis may be nearing an “inflection point,” after which the virus could be downgraded to a less dire but permanent fixture in the gamut of human pathogens.

On Friday, the agency convened its emergency committee for the 14th time to assess the global status of the pandemic coronavirus. The week marked the three-year anniversary of the agency’s initial COVID-19 PHEIC declaration.

“As we enter the fourth year of the pandemic, we are certainly in a much better position now than we were a year ago, when the omicron wave was at its peak, and more than 70,000 deaths were being reported to WHO each week,” WHO Director-General Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said in opening remarks to Friday’s committee meeting.