WHO: COVID-19 death toll rises globally as infections fall

Even against the invention and implementation of effective vaccines against coronavirus, the situation with the pandemic cannot be reversed, said the World Health Organization experts.

The WHO has released another list and highlighted the main figures on the situation with coronavirus infection in the world over the past week.

The number of new cases of COVID-19 decreased by 17%, but the number of deaths, on the contrary, increased by 7% compared to the previous week. In total, as of February 6, 2022, more than 392 million confirmed cases of the disease and more than 5.7 million deaths from it were recorded worldwide.

WHO incident manager Abdi Mahamud said that since the end of November, that is, since the start of the spread of the omicron strain, 130 million cases of coronavirus infection and 500,000 related deaths have been recorded worldwide. Due to its high infectivity, omicron has become the most common strain.

According to the specialist, he is surprised by the situation when half a million people die in the era of effective vaccines.

While everyone said that Omicron was softer, they lost sight of the fact that half a million people have died since its discovery. It is more than tragic, Abdi Mahamud added.

There are currently 4 omicron substrains being monitored by WHO. So far, the BA.1 substrain dominates, but the BA.2 substrain is more contagious, so it may account for a growing proportion of coronavirus cases in the future.

So far, there is no indication that BA.2, unlike BA.1, leads to more severe COVID-19 disease, experts said. And they don't yet know whether people can become infected with the BA.1 and BA.2 substrains at the same time.

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