Geneva, Jan. 5 (BNA): The World Health Organization (WHO) said Thursday that 9.5 million cases of COVID-19 were recorded over the past week as the omicron variant of the coronavirus swept the planet, an increase of 71% over the previous 7. The day the United Nations health agency likened to a ‘tsunami’. However, the number of recorded weekly deaths has decreased.
“Last week, the largest number of COVID-19 cases to date in the pandemic were reported,” said WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus. He said the WHO was certain that was an underestimate due to the backlog of testing around the end of the year holiday.
In its weekly report on the epidemic, the agency said the weekly number was 95,20488 new cases — with 41,178 deaths recorded last week compared to 44,680 the week before that, an Associated Press report said.
WHO officials have long cited a gap between the number of cases and deaths, with changes in the number of deaths often delayed by about two weeks from the development of the case count.
But they also noted that for several reasons—including higher rates of vaccination in some places, and signs of Omicron’s effect on the nose and throat more than the lungs—Omicron did not appear as lethal as the delta variant that preceded it.
It is unlikely that there will be any increase in the number of hospitalizations or deaths following the recent increase in the number of cases for about two weeks.
While Omicron appears to be less severe than Delta, especially among vaccinated people, the WHO chief cautioned: “This does not mean it should be classified as mild. Just like previous variants, Omicron is getting people into hospitals, and it’s killing people. “.
The increases in the number of cases over the past week varied, the World Health Organization said, doubling in the Americas, but rising only 7% in Africa.
The WHO’s head of emergencies, Dr Michael Ryan, said speculation that Omicron may be the latest type of outbreak was “security thinking” and warned: “There is still a lot of energy in this virus.”
Maria van Kerkhove, WHO technical chief on COVID-19, added: “I think it’s highly unlikely that omicron will be the last alternative you hear us discuss.”
WHO officials have called on the public to intensify measures to combat the epidemic such as vaccination, ventilation of rooms, maintaining proper physical distance and wearing masks – but correctly.
“It struck me how people actually wear masks,” Van Kerkhove said.
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