New Covid-19 cases down 16% last week: WHO

GENEVA: New Covid-19 cases reported worldwide fell by 16% last week to 2.7 million, the World Health Organization said.

New deaths reported also fell 10% week on week to 81,000, the UN body said on Tuesday in its weekly update, using figures up to Sunday. Five of the six WHO regions of the world reported a double-digit percentage decline in new cases, with only the Eastern Mediterranean showing a rise, of 7%. New case numbers dropped 20% last week in Africa and in the Western Pacific, 18% in Europe, 16% in the Americas and 13% in southeast Asia.

WHO director general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said that the number of new cases had declined for a fifth consecutive week, dropping by almost half, from more than five million cases in the week of January

4. “This shows that simple public health measures work, even in the presence of variants,” Tedros said. “What matters now is how we respond to this trend. The fire is not out, but we have reduced its size. If we stop fighting it on any front, it will come roaring back.”

United Nations Secretarygeneral Antonio Guterres called for a global vaccination effort, urging the Group of 20 countries to coordinate it.

Separately, secretary of state Antony Blinken told the council the US will pay the more than $200 million it owes to the WHO by the end of the month.

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