WHO warns second year may be worse

GENEVA: The second year of the Covid19 pandemic may be tougher than the first, given how the virus is spreading, especially in the northern hemisphere as more infectious variants circulate, the World Health Organisation (WHO) said yesterday.

‘‘We are going into a second year of this, it could even be tougher, given the transmission dynamics and some of the issues that we are seeing,’’ WHO health emergencies programme director Mike Ryan said.

The worldwide death toll is approaching 2 million, and 91.5 million people have been infected.

The WHO, in its latest epidemiological update issued yesterday, said after two weeks of fewer cases being reported, some 5 million new cases were reported last week, probably the result of lowered defences during the holiday season in which people — and the virus — came together.

‘‘Certainly in the northern hemisphere, particularly in Europe and North America, we have seen that sort of perfect storm of the season: coldness, people going inside, increased social mixing and a combination of factors that have driven increased transmission in many, many countries,’’ Ryan said.

WHO technical lead for Covid19 Maria Van Kerkhove warned that ‘‘after the holidays, in some countries the situation will get a lot worse before it gets better’’.

Amid growing fears of the more contagious variant first detected in Britain, governments across Europe yesterday announced tighter, longer restrictions.

That includes homeoffice requirements and store closures in Switzerland, an extended Italian Covid19 state of emergency and German efforts to further reduce contact between people.

The United Kingdom reported 1564 new deaths within 28 days of a positive test for Covid19 yesterday, a record daily toll, meaning more had died in the second wave of the pandemic than the first last year, a health official said.

The figures showed there were another 47,525 cases, up from 45,533 new cases on Wednesday.

There have now been almost 85,000 deaths from the virus in Britain and 3.2 million people have tested positive.

United States authorities reported 4327 deaths — also a

record daily high — on Wednesday, according to data from the Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore released yesterday.

In the country with about 330 million inhabitants, about 22.8 million people have been infected and more than 380,000 have died. — Reuters/DPA