Global COVID-19 cases have doubled in last six weeks, WHO says
Global News
Reported cases of COVID-19 have doubled around the world in the last six weeks, the World Health Organization said Wednesday.
Reported cases of COVID-19 have doubled globally in the last six weeks, the World Health Organization (WHO) said Wednesday.
The increase in cases is being driven mainly by the highly contagious BA.5 subvariant of Omicron — a strain the WHO says is the “most transmissible variant detected yet.”
The number of deaths linked to COVID-19 is also increasing, but not as rapidly as case numbers at this time. But more cases mean countries should expect to see more hospitalizations and deaths in the coming weeks, said WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus.
“We have said consistently that this virus will continue to evolve and we must be ready for whatever it throws at us,” he said during a briefing in Geneva on Wednesday.
“That could be a new version of the variant we already know or something completely new.”
For any future variant to become widespread, it must be more transmissible than previous variants, but it’s impossible to predict how deadly future strains of the virus will be, Tedros said.
That’s why countries should be ready to respond, he warned.
Tedros also raised concern about the fact many countries have moved away from pandemic precautions and surveillance.