“We have made a lot of progress and this is certainly cause for optimism, but we continue to ask governments, communities and individuals to remain vigilant,” he said at a press conference from the organization’s headquarters in Geneva.
“Nearly 10,000 deaths a week is 10,000 too many for a disease that can be prevented and treated,” he said.
The WHO chief added that testing and sequencing rates remain low globally, vaccination gaps between rich and poor countries remain large, and new variants continue to proliferate.
The UN health agency said the total number of new COVID-19 cases registered globally exceeded 2.1 million in the week ending Sunday, down 15% from the previous week. The weekly death toll fell 10% from the previous week’s figure.
In total, WHO has reported 629 million cases and 6.5 million deaths related to the pandemic.
Maria Van Kerkhove, WHO Technical Director for COVID-19, cited “substantially low” estimates of the virus’s actual circulation as surveillance and testing declined along with a drop in case counts. She recalled that the coronavirus “is still a pandemic and continues to circulate uncontrollably around the world”, so the main focus now is on hospitalizations and deaths.
The largest number of new cases reported was in Japan, with over 401,000, a 42% increase from the previous week. This is followed by South Korea, the United States, Germany and China, which counted more than 219,000 new cases in the week – a decrease of 15% from the previous week.
However, China recorded 539 COVID-19-related deaths in the week, a 10% increase from the previous week.
