The World Health Organization (WHO) has reported a nearly 90 per cent drop in global COVID-19 deaths, compared to nine months ago.
Key points:
- The WHO says testing rates remain low globally and new variants continue to appear
- There were more than 2.1 million new COVID-19 cases registered globally last week, down 15 per cent
- Japan recorded the highest number of cases, with more than 401,000 new incidences of the virus last week
WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said that, while the news provided “cause for optimism”, he still urged vigilance against the pandemic as new variants continued to appear.
He said that, last week, slightly more than 9,400 deaths linked to COVID-19 reported to the WHO.
In February of this year, he said, weekly deaths had topped 75,000 globally.
“We have come a long way, and this is definitely cause for optimism,” he said at a virtual news conference from the WHO’s Geneva headquarters.
“But we continue to call on all governments, communities and individuals to remain vigilant.
“Almost 10,000 deaths a week is 10,000 too many for a disease that can be prevented and treated.”
The WHO chief said that testing and sequencing rates remained low globally, vaccination gaps between rich and poor countries were still wide, and new variants continued to proliferate.
Meanwhile, the UN health agency said the tally of newly registered COVID-19 cases worldwide came in at more than 2.1 million for the week ending Sunday, down 15 per cent from the previous week.
The number of weekly deaths fell 10 per cent, compared to a week earlier.
Overall, the WHO has reported 629 million cases and 6.5 million deaths linked to the pandemic.
Maria Van Kerkhove — the WHO’s technical lead on COVID-19 — cited a “substantial underestimate” of the true circulation of the virus because surveillance and testing have declined, along with a drop in case counts.
She said COVID-19 was “still a pandemic, and it’s still circulating quite rampantly around the world” — and a key focus now was on hospital admissions and deaths.
The highest number of newly reported cases over the week came in Japan, with more than 401,000 incidences of the virus, an increase of 42 per cent from the previous week.
That was followed by Korea, the United States, Germany and China, which counted more than 219,000 new cases over the week — a drop of 15 per cent from the previous week.
China still saw 539 deaths linked to COVID-19 during the week, an increase of 10 per cent from the previous week.
While its numbers have remained relatively low, China has relentlessly pursued a strict “zero-COVID” policy of quarantines, lockdowns and daily or near-daily compulsory testing that has, at times, fanned protests and clashes between residents and authorities.
AP
