The World Health Organization, or WHO, has said that “the Covid pandemic may be nearing a close.” Last week’s numbers of cases and deaths have decreased.
New weekly deaths reached their lowest point last week since March 2020. The WHO recorded around 11,000 deaths globally from the week of Sept. 5-11, a 22% decrease from the week prior.
New weekly cases also fell 28% in that time, from nearly 4.2 million during the week of August 29 to Sept. 4 to around 3.1 million last week, according to the WHO.
“We have never been in a better position to end the pandemic,” WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said in a Wednesday briefing. “We are not there yet, but the end is in sight.”
Even though global deaths are at an all-time low deaths in the United States have remained close to the same over the last couple of weeks.
The U.S. is recording a weekly average of 478 Covid deaths per day, which is far above its lowest rate ever. The country has yet to match the low from early July 2021: The seven-day average on July 6 was just 168 daily deaths. In June 2022, the average dropped as low as 258 daily deaths.
However, new recorded Covid cases have declined 14% in the last two weeks to fewer than 73,000 per day, on average.
What about the new booster shot? Is it helping with cases and deaths? The new booster shot targets the original strain and the omicron subvariants. This will most likely provide better protection and probably has more lasting protection against severe illness.
Some people may be asking when who officially declares the pandemic over. That is up to the WHO.
The WHO is responsible for declaring an end to Covid as a public health emergency of international concern, a designation it reserves for the most serious global disease outbreaks. Tedros did not indicate on Wednesday that such a declaration was imminent.
Source NBC News
