New York, Europe Brief News – About 75,000 Covid deaths were reported worldwide last week, the World Health Organization’s (WHO) said.
The number of new Covid cases worldwide has dropped by 19 percent in the past week. However, the recorded deaths remain stable, the WHO added.
“Over 16 million cases and 75,000 new deaths were reported globally during the week of February 7 to February 13.”
Russia has witnessed the biggest number of new COVID-19 cases. Cases there and elsewhere in Eastern Europe doubled in recent weeks, driven by a surge of the Omicron variant.
Meanwhile, the number of deaths rose by 38 percent in the Eastern Mediterranean region and by about one-third in the Western Pacific, according to the WHO’s weekly report.
WHO said that all other coronavirus variants, including Alpha, Beta and Delta, continue to decline globally as Omicron crowds them out.
Among the more than 400,000 Covid virus sequences uploaded to the world’s biggest virus database in the last week. More than 98 percent were Omicron.
Half of Europe to catch Omicron
The World Health Organization (WHO) has earlier said that half of Europe will catch Omicron.
WHO Regional Director for Europe Hans Kluge said a “west-to-east tidal wave” of Omicron was sweeping across the region. The Delta variant is on top of a surge, he added.
The projection was based on the seven million new cases reported across Europe in the first week of 2022.
The number of infections has more than doubled in a two-week period.
“Today the Omicron variant represents a new west-to-east tidal wave, sweeping across the region on top of the Delta surge that all countries were managing until late 2021,” Dr Kluge told a news conference.
He quoted the Seattle-based Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation as forecasting that “more than 50 percent of the population in the region will test positive for Omicron in the next six to eight weeks”.
The WHO has earlier warned of ‘tsunami’ of COVID cases in the near future. The declaration was due to Omicron spread.
