The World Health Organization said on Monday the world was seeing a plateauing in the number of COVID-19 cases and deaths, with declines in most regions including the Americas and Europe, the two worst-affected regions.
“But it’s an unacceptably high plateau, with more than 5.4 million reported COVID-19 cases and almost 90,000 deaths last week,” WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told a briefing.
The spread of variants, increased social mixing, the relaxation of public health and social measures and inequitable vaccination are all driving transmission, he added on Twitter: “Therefore, we need to use every tool at our disposal to drive transmission down, right now.”
He added that even in countries with a downward trend in cases and with the highest vaccination rates, public health capacities must be strengthened to prepare for the possibility of vaccine-evading variants, and for future emergencies.
via Reuters
