WHO Reports Sharp Increase in World’s COVID-19 Deaths in Past Month

By Staff, Agencies

"In the last four weeks alone, we’ve seen a sharp increase in deaths around the world," the World Health Organization [WHO] cautioned.

“It is critical that we not only increase vaccination coverage to protect people’s lives but also to reduce the spread,” WHO's COVID-19 Technical lead, Maria Van Kerkhove, said as she provided a video update on the COVID-19 situation globally, including information on the Omicron variant of concern.

"The virus is spreading around the world at an incredibly intense level, and we need to reduce the opportunity for people getting infected because people who are infected are at risk for developing severe disease," she explained.

"We also know that people who are infected with COVID-19, infected with the SARS-CoV-2 virus can also develop long COVID, something we don’t have a complete understanding of, and we want to reduce that risk."

Van Kerkhove also highlighted the need to reduce the opportunity for further variants to emerge. "The more the virus spreads, the more opportunities it has to change.”

Globally, during the week of 31 Jan to 06 Feb 2022, the number of new COVID-19 cases declined compared to the cases reported during the previous week, while the number of new deaths increased by nearly 7%.

Across the six WHO regions, over 19 million new cases and nearly 68,000 new deaths were reported.

As of 06 Feb 2022, over 392 million confirmed cases and over 5.7 million deaths had been reported worldwide.

The WHO is working with thousands of scientists to study Omicron and all of these sublineages in terms of what it means for transmission, for severity, and impact of interventions, said Van Kerkhove and will "inform you with the latest information as soon as we receive it."