Worldwide COVID cases surpass 500 mln as Omicron variant BA.2 surges

Geneva, April 15 / BNA / The global novel coronavirus (Covid-19) cases exceeded 500 million on Thursday, according to a Reuters statistic, as the highly contagious Omicron virus BA.2 increased in many countries in Europe and Asia.


The rise of BA.2 has been blamed for recent increases in China as well as record infections in Europe. It has been called a “stealth variant” because it is a little more difficult to track compared to the others.


South Korea leads the world in the daily average number of new cases, reporting more than 182,000 new infections per day and accounting for one in four infections globally, according to a Reuters analysis.


New cases are rising in 20 of the more than 240 countries and territories tracked, including Taiwan, Thailand and Bhutan.


Some European countries are now seeing a slower rise in new cases, or even a decline, but the region is still reporting more than 1 million cases every two days, according to a Reuters tally.


The US National Public Health Agency said on Monday that the BA.2 sub-variant of Omicron is estimated to be about three out of every four different types of coronavirus in the country.


The BA.2 variant now accounts for about 86% of all serial cases globally, according to the World Health Organization.


It is known to be more transmissible than the BA.1 and BA.1.1 Omicron sub variants. However, the evidence so far indicates that BA.2 is not likely to cause severe disease.

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Scientists continue to stress that vaccines are necessary to avoid the devastation that the virus can cause.


Nearly 64.8% of the world’s population has received at least one dose of the COVID vaccine, although only 14.8% of people in low-income countries have received at least one dose, according to figures from Our World in Data.


About 6.5 million people have died from the coronavirus since the pandemic began. The United States recorded the largest number of deaths, followed by Russia, Brazil and India.


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