The level of risk from the Omicron variant remains very high, the World Health Organization (WHO) said, with the number of new Covid-19 cases hitting a new record high last week.
“More than 21 million new cases have been reported, which represents the highest number of weekly cases recorded since the start of the pandemic.“, said the World Health Organization in its weekly coronavirus epidemiological update.
The UN health agency said the number of new infections rose 5% in the week ending Sunday, compared with the 20% rise recorded the previous week. “A slower increase in case incidence has been observed globally,” the WHO said.
Nearly 50,000 new deaths were also reported, he added, which was a similar figure to the previous week.
The report indicates that Omicron continues to increase its global dominance over other variants of concern.
“The current global epidemiology of SARS-CoV-2 is characterized by the dominance of the Omicron variant globally, a continued decline in the prevalence of the Delta variant, and very low-level circulation of the Alpha, Beta and Gamma », says the WHO.
“Countries that saw a rapid increase in Omicron cases in November and December 2021 have seen or are beginning to see a decline in cases”, adds the same source. However, ” based on currently available evidence, the overall risk from the Omicron variant remains very high”.
The WHO said that of the samples collected in the last 30 days that were sequenced and uploaded to the global science initiative GISAID, Omicron accounted for 89.1%.
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