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Geneva: The World Health Organization announced Friday that the number of weekly deaths due to the Covid-19 virus, which amounts to about 50,000 people, is unacceptably high, with one million deaths in the world approaching.
The organization said that although the death and infection rates of the new Corona virus in the world are in a stable state rather than rising dramatically, the global numbers include sudden increases at the lower regional and local levels.
The deadly virus has killed nearly 947,000 people around the world since its appearance in China last December, according to official sources compiled by Agence France-Presse, while more than 30.2 million infections have been recorded.
Michael Ryan, Executive Director of the Health Emergencies Program at the World Health Organization, said, “We add every week between 1.8 million and two million injuries (…) and deaths, at a rate of between 40 and 50 thousand.”
He added, “Fortunately, (the numbers) are not rising steadily. It is a very high number (…) This is not what we are seeking.”
“Although these numbers are constant at the global level, this covers the fact that at the regional and sub-regional level in some countries, we are witnessing significant increases in cases,” he said.
Ryan said that although the death rate decreased with the improvement of treatment techniques, “we cannot accept the 50 thousand deaths per week as an acceptable number.”
On Friday, large parts of Europe prepared to impose widespread new restrictions to stem the spread of the Coronavirus, and Israel imposed a second nationwide lockdown.
Maria Van Kerkhove, WHO’s technical director on COVID-19, said the UN agency was seeing “worrying trends in the northern hemisphere” in terms of case numbers, hospitalizations and intensive care, although we “haven’t even started the flu season yet.”
While 36 vaccines are currently being tested on humans, the American official said that some countries have learned throughout the period of the epidemic that they can overcome the virus with the available measures.
“As we approach 30 million cases and one million deaths, we still have a long way to go,” she added. “But we are in a different situation than we were in January,” she added.
“We know a lot now and countries are showing us that they can use the tools they have now to break the chains of transmission and save lives,” she said.
In turn, the Director-General of the World Health Organization, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, expressed his regret that the “Covid-19” epidemic showed that the world in a collective form was unprepared in an unfortunate manner.
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