Some good news: The world had its lowest COVID death toll last week since March 2020, the World Health Organization said.

• The end of the pandemic “is in sight,” said WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus.
• But “we are not there yet.”

Zoom out: Last summer’s Delta variant demolished the first sense of relief after vaccines.

• “If we don’t take this opportunity now, Tedros said while calling for more vaccinations and testing, “we run the risk of more variants, more deaths, more disruption and more uncertainty.”

The bottom line: The next surge could come by surprise.

• Johns Hopkins University is scaling back its COVID metrics due to a slowdown in local data reporting, the university confirmed to Axios.