New cases fall for 3rd week, WHO says

GENEVA－The number of new coronavirus cases around the world fell 21 percent last week, marking the third consecutive week that COVID-19 cases have dropped, said the World Health Organization on Tuesday.

In the UN health agency's weekly pandemic report, the WHO said there were more than 12 million new coronavirus infections last week. The number of new COVID-19 deaths fell 8 percent to about 67,000 worldwide, the first time that weekly deaths have fallen since early January.

The Western Pacific was the only region that saw an increase in COVID-19 cases, with a 29 percent jump, while the number of infections elsewhere dropped significantly. The number of new deaths also rose in the Western Pacific and Africa while falling everywhere else. The highest numbers of new COVID-19 cases were seen in Russia, Germany, Brazil, the United States and South Korea.

The WHO said Omicron remains the overwhelmingly dominant variant worldwide, accounting for more than 99 percent of sequences shared with the world's biggest virus database. It said Delta was the only other variant of significance, which comprised fewer than 1 percent of shared sequences.

It also reported that available vaccine evidence shows that "booster vaccination substantially improves" against Omicron, but said more details are still needed on how long such protection lasts.

The agency had previously said there was no proof that boosters were necessary for healthy people and pleaded with rich countries not to offer third doses to their people before sharing them with poorer countries.

Milder symptoms

Health officials have noted that Omicron causes milder disease than previous COVID-19 variants and in countries with high vaccination rates. Omicron has spread widely, but COVID-19 hospitalization and death rates have not increased substantially.

South Korea reported a new record high of 171,452 more COVID-19 cases as of midnight Tuesday, raising the total number of infections to more than 2.3 million, said its health authorities on Wednesday.

The daily caseload was sharply up from 99,573 the previous day, topping the previous high of 109,822 tallied on Feb 18, according to the Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency.

Agencies - Xinhua