An Associated Press media report released yesterday, Wednesday, said the World Health Organization says coronavirus case counts fell 17% worldwide over the last week compared to the previous week, including a 50% drop in the United States, while deaths globally declined 7%.
Quote.
The weekly epidemiological report from the U.N. health agency, released late Tuesday, shows that the omicron variant is increasingly dominant — making up nearly 97% of all cases tallied by the international virus-tracking platform known as GISAID. Just over 3% were of the delta variant.
“The prevalence of the omicron variant has increased globally and is now detected in almost all countries,” WHO said. “However, many of the countries which reported an early rise in the number of cases due to the omicron variant have now reported a decline in the total number of new cases since the beginning of January 2022.”
All told, WHO reported more than 19 million new cases of COVID-19 and under 68,000 new deaths during the week from Jan. 31 to Feb. 6. As with all such tallies, experts say such figures are believed to greatly underestimate the real toll.
Case counts fell in each of WHO’s six regions except its eastern Mediterranean zone, which reported a 36% jump, notably with increases in Afghanistan, Iran and Jordan.
In Europe, case counts fell 7% — led by declines in places like France and Germany — even as countries in eastern Europe like Azerbaijan, Belarus and Russia posted increases. In the Americas, case counts fell 36%, with the United States — still the single most-affected country — reporting 1.87 million new cases, down 50% from the previous week.
WHO cited limited data about the effectiveness of vaccines against the omicron variant, while saying estimates showed reduced protection of the first series of COVID-19 vaccines against the variant for severe disease, symptomatic disease and infection. The agency said booster doses increase estimates of vaccine effectiveness to over 75% for all vaccines for which data are available, though the rates declined after three to six months after injection.
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Comment
While Covid has reportedly progressed into 6 of Solomon Islands provinces today, the SI Minister of Health has said he believed 1000 people that had contracted the Covid virus had recovered at home and he felt some personal comfort from that news.
I very much hope that Covid figures will continue to decrease if self isolation rules and health protocols are strictly followed.
I hope, too, many more will get themselves fully vaccinated as vaccines are most effective to prevent severe complications from the Omicron variant.
While having to self-isolate to stay free of Covid, it is hoped food distribution will be stepped up and I express my appreciation to all those already seeing to the flow of food and medicine supplies, especially to Solomon Airlines for its freight flights across the nation.
Yours sincerely
Frank Short
