The steady global rise in COVID-19 cases slowed last week, with cases up 5% compared with the previous week, the World Health Organization (WHO) said yesterday in its weekly update on the pandemic.
However, countries reported more than 21 million new cases, marking the highest weekly total since the pandemic began.New surges under way in more countriesThe Eastern Mediterranean region reported the biggest rise last week, with the steepest increases reported from Iraq and Afghanistan.
Cases were also up sharply in the South East Asia region, with the largest spikes in Bhutan, Bangladesh, and Indonesia. COVID-19 activity was also up in the European region, with the biggest jumps reported by Kosovo, Moldova, and Armenia.The five countries that added the most cases to the global total were the United States, France, India, Italy, and Brazil.
Deaths remained similar to the previous week, and the WHO received reports of nearly 50,000 fatalities last week.Of genetic sequences uploaded to the GISAID database over the past month, 89.1% were the Omicron variant.