GENEVA (AP) — The number of new coronavirus deaths reported worldwide fell by 17% in the last week, although COVID-19 infections rose after a decline in the number of cases started in January, the World Health Organization said.
In the last week, more than 11 million new cases of COVID-19 were detected - an increase of around 8% - and 43,000 new deaths, according to the WHO weekly report, published on Tuesday night. The number of deaths from COVID-19 has been falling worldwide over the past three weeks.
The greatest increase in infections occurred in the Western Pacific and Africa, where they rose by 29% and 12%, respectively. Elsewhere, cases fell by more than 20% in the Middle East, Southeast Asia and the Americas. Europe recorded a small increase of 2%.
WHO warned that the figures “should be interpreted with caution.” He noted that many countries are changing their diagnostic testing strategies as they leave the acute phase of the pandemic and are doing far fewer tests than before, so that many new cases go undetected.
In recent weeks, countries such as Sweden and Great Britain have announced plans to abandon widespread testing and pointed out that the huge investment is no longer worth it. Even so, infections, hospitalizations and deaths have risen slightly in Britain, driven by the more contagious subvariant omicron BA.2. Another factor has been the suspension of almost all protocols against COVID-19, which has led to more crowds and the abandonment of masks.
WHO noted that while COVID-19 is subsiding in many regions, the pandemic has been increasing in the Western Pacific since December.
China banned most people from leaving a northeastern province affected by the coronavirus and mobilized military reservists on Monday, while the omicron subvariant drives the largest outbreak in the country since the start of the pandemic two years ago. Authorities also confined the southern city of Shenzhen, which has 17.5 million people and is also a major technology and finance hub bordering Hong Kong, which has reported one of the highest COVID-19 death rates lately.