The number of new COVID-19 cases reported worldwide rose by 80 percent in the last month, the World Health Organization said on Friday, days after designating a new "variant of interest".
The WHO declared in May that COVID is no longer a global health emergency, but has warned that the virus will continue to circulate and mutate, causing occasional spikes in infections, hospitalizations and deaths.
In its weekly update, the U.N. agency said that nations reported nearly 1.5 million new cases from July 10 to August 6, an 80 percent increase compared to the previous 28 days.
However the number of deaths fell by 57 percent to 2,500.
The WHO warned that the reported number of cases and deaths do not reflect the true numbers, in part because countries carry out far less testing and monitoring than during earlier stages of the pandemic.
Many of the new cases came in the Western Pacific region, which saw infections jump by 137 percent, the WHO said.
Several countries in the Northern Hemisphere, including the United States, United Kingdom, France and Japan have seen a summer uptick in cases in recent weeks.
Experts have suggested that summer gatherings and travel, declining immunity and a new subvariant may have all played a role in the increase.
On Wednesday, the WHO designated the Omicron subvariant EG.5 as a "variant of interest" following a steady rise in its prevalence.
More than 17 percent of all reported cases were EG.5 in mid-July, up from 7.6 percent a month before, according to the WHO.
Subvariant poses 'low' risk
EG.5, which has been unofficially nicknamed "Eris" online, is considered to be a descendant of the XBB lineage of the virus.
It seems to be more transmissible than other circulating variants, likely due to a mutation in its spike protein, and the WHO said it has shown an ability to evade immunity.
But there is no sign that EG.5 causes more severe Covid symptoms and it poses a "low" risk to global public health, the WHO said, comparing its threat to other recent Omicron subvariants.
Nonetheless, WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus warned that "the risk remains of a more dangerous variant emerging that could cause a sudden increase in cases and deaths".
France's Health Minister Aurelien Rousseau called for vigilance, while emphasising that COVID numbers remain at low levels.
"We will have to live with the resurgence of this virus for several seasons to come," he said in a statement sent to AFP.
Antoine Flahault, director of the Institute of Global Health at the University of Geneva, told AFP that the true COVID situation remained unclear "just about everywhere in the world".
"Health authorities urgently need to reinstate a reliable COVID health monitoring system," he said, calling for wastewater to be analyzed to detect virus trends.
While the impact of COVID has been greatly diminished due to high levels immunity from either vaccination or prior infection, the virus still poses a threat -- including long Covid, for which symptoms can last for months or years.
The WHO has urged countries to ramp up vaccination efforts.
Pharmaceutical firms Pfizer/BioNTech, Moderna and Novavax are all working on updating their COVID vaccines to target XBB subvariants.
© 2023 AFP
29 Comments
falseflagsteve
Oh the WHO calls this a low risk to public health like the other Omicron variants. Weren’t saying it a while ago we’re they. Still wanting everyone to get vaccinated, when will this madness end?
EFD
Fortunately everyone who wants to has access to safe and effective vaccines.
Those too obtuse to follow basic science can be left to their fate.
It might be the “US election variant” in that only members of the MAGA cult are too stupid to get vaccinated . As such, they may be available to vote in fewer numbers owing to the fact that they’ve died of Covid in the last 4 years.
funkymofo
Oh the WHO calls this a low risk to public health like the other Omicron variants. Weren’t saying it a while ago we’re they
What does this mean? They were saying it was low risk or they weren't?
falseflagsteve
funkymofo
The WHO were fear mongering about Omicron for ages, now they say it is a low risk variant.
funkymofo
So the newer variant, which is different from older variants, is less dangerous. I don't see how that's controversial.
dagon
Maybe prescient of the strife and discord leading up to 2024.
But maybe we could do with some Discordianism.
virusrex
the same, how could they profit from making things that can help people reduce their risks right?
Giving the best available information is not fear mongering. The whole point of new variants being kept under vigilance is that they could be much more dangerous, for omicron that stage is already finished and the scientific data shows no elevated risks.
Pretending scientist should instantly being able to divinate how much risk new variants will have even before the data is collected is deeply irrational.
falseflagsteve
virusrex
But they didn’t use the best available info did they. That was available in early December 2021 and showed how much milder Omicron was. Data provided from South Africa which has high levels of monitoring and excellent data. I prefer to stick with the facts that occurred at the time. In fact I commented about this at the time and you were one who poo pooed what I said. All proved correct as ever.
virusrex
Then show a scientific reference that can prove that with epidemiologically supported arguments, else that is still the best available data followed by a solid scientific process as the experts on the field have to do. Not a wild guess from incomplete data from people without proper qualifications to actually interpret that data and decide how much certainty can be obtained from it.
Mark
Comes Autumn we probably will have to put on our masks again???
cuddly
The WHO declared in May that COVID is no longer a global health emergency, but has warned that the virus will continue to circulate and mutate, causing occasional spikes in infections, hospitalizations and deaths.
It's up to the individual country to determine its health policies, as the WHO has no legal authority.
And we've seen the misses by the WHO in the past few years.
As for the vaccines, they don't prevent Covid, as promised.
A global flop on many sides.
virusrex
You still have this misunderstanding the WHO is a global public health authority because of the scientific merits, not because of legal powers.
What miss is the WHO doing in this specific case?
Yes they do, the last time you made a very irrational argument saying no vaccine ever have prevented any disease because there are always some cases even after vaccination, is this your argument again this time?
EFD
Or to put it in language that the anti-vaxx “community” can more easily understand, “Stupid is as stupid does”.
Ah_so
In my experience, anti-vaxxers need to be willfully blind to things like this. The data are very strong to show that vaccinated people:
are less likely to be infected
are less likely to suffer serious consequences if infected
recover quicker if infected
remain infectious for shorter periods if infectedDespite the data being available, they still say things like "the vaccine doesn't work". It's tedious reading the same clearly untrue information after such a long period.
Wick's pencil
Unfortunately, that is about to change.
Rodney
WHO is funded by drug companies and shareholder backers.
Wick's pencil
"However the number of deaths fell by 57 percent"
So why is the WHO urging countries to ramp up vaccination efforts?
EFD
They prevent serious illness and death. Much lick the flu vaccine. And that's more than good enough.
If everyone took them (as with the polio and small pox vaccines) then they would be remarkably effective at preventing infection because the reservoir of the virus would be so limited.
Sadly there are a large number of anti-vaxx goobers for whom stupid is as stupid does.
mountainpear
If that is the case, then all the vaccines you've had up to now will be null and void!
ian
Doesn't matter much now even if true, they've served their purpose protecting against earlier deadlier variants , which made a lot of the unvaccinated become null and void
Raw Beer
Yes, and that mutation might have been an immune escape mutation caused by mass vaccination; see Geert van den Bosch.
Exactly, makes no sense.
Even with omicron, I often mentioned that the vaccine could be considered as an ideal live attenuated vaccine as it would provide broader, more robust, and longer lasting immunity than the shots, while being less risky. This seems to be even more applicable to this new variant.
kurisupisu
I gave up taking the useless vaccines and changed my diet.I’ve been in very close proximity to this or the previous twice for two weeks and not caught it
Nobody talks about eating more healthily, exercise or other ways to boost the immune system.
ClippetyClop
It's more guaranteed than non-scientific data.
That makes no sense.
Perhaps because everyone already knows the benefits of a healthy lifestyle?
Maybe they should encourage this more, but it's hard to get most people to change their way of living when an effective vaccine is a much easier option for them.
Jimizo
Lots of people talk about this.
Who’s telling you they aren’t?
JohnnyTheWad
Good man.
JohnnyTheWad
@falseflagsteve
Winning!!!
Wick's pencil
The benefits of eating right (low carb), exercise, vitD, zinc... far outweigh those of the vax, yet we only hear about the benefits of the vax, except for comments on JT or some censored doctors.
virusrex
All previous variants of importance came from poorly vaccinated populations, this comes thanks to the huge advantage previous immunity gives to outselect variants before they become predominant compared with immunity being produced after infection began, if anything the new variants can be said to appear in spite of vaccination, not thanks to it.
It makes perfect sense, vaccines reduce the risk from the disease very importantly, having more cases means more risks for the population so vaccination is a great help to limit this risk.
the problem is that your claims are false, the infection gives much higher risk than any vaccine, and since people get a further reduction of risk when being vaccinated even after omicron infection that means the protection is not better as you claim.
Nobody except for every doctor you will go and see, that has not changed from before the pandemic, healthy life styles are always recommended, but neither guarantee 100% being free of disease or complications.
Any reference for this? personal beliefs are not enough to say something "is" just that you personally believe it so.
An important thing is that both things can easily be done together without problems pretending you have to choose between them instead of doing everything you can (including vaccination) to prevent risks is deeply misleading and can increase the risk of people that could listen to this bad advice.