The World Health Organization said late Tuesday that the global figure of new coronavirus cases decreased by 500,000 last week to 2.7 million, a 16 percent drop over the previous week. In the first full week of January, new coronavirus cases had peaked at nearly 5 million.
Here’s a roundup of the latest developments:
- Last week, nearly all regions of the world have seen a downward trend in new cases, except for the Middle East. There has also been a global drop in deaths last week, with 81,000 new deaths, a 10 percent decrease over the previous week.
- 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.
- “This shows that simple public health measures work, even in the presence of variants,” WHO director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said on Monday.
- The drop in new global cases and deaths comes as more countries roll out vaccines.
- Meanwhile, the Covax facility, the global Covid-19 vaccine procurement and distribution effort which aims to ensure poorer countries are also able to access doses said its final shipment list for the first deliveries would be issued next week, after the WHO approved the AstraZeneca shots.
