he most welcome news on May 8 was the announcement by the World Health Organization (WHO) that Covid-19 is no longer a global emergency. While the stand-down siren has been sounded, we must remain vigilant and take precautions as there are still thousands of people around the world contracting milder forms of the virus; in some cases still resulting in serious issues for people who have underlying health conditions. Some facts from the WHO website suggest that (as of early May 2023), over the last three years, approximately 756 million Covid cases were recorded with approximately 7 million people who lost their lives. Assuming the global population at about 8 billion, this translates to almost 9.5% of the population being infected and approximately 0.09% of the population having died. Comparing this with the Spanish Flu that started in February 1918 and lasted approximately two years, 500 million people or a third of the then global population were infected and about 50 million people died (3.3% of the global population). Though spread a century apart, these are events, particularly Covid-19, that have prepared us to deal with and overcome adversity together as a
