While the emergence of vaccines is offering hope, the global pandemic is still “growing exponentially” the World Health Organization warned in a press briefing Monday.
New COVID-19 cases over the past two months have averaged over 4.4 million per week, officials said. Despite levels that are nearly eight times higher than a year ago, however, more countries are easing their restrictions, which could prolong the crisis.
“In January and Feb, the world saw six consecutive weeks of declining cases,” said Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, director general at WHO. “We have now seen seven consecutive weeks of increasing cases and four weeks of increasing deaths. Last week was the fourth highest number of cases in a single week so far.”
Some of the biggest increases have been in Asia and the Middle east. India is now the second worse-infected country after the U.S., bumping Brazil to third.
“We are in a critical point of the pandemic right now,” said Maria Van Kerkhove, WHO’s technical lead for COVID-19. “This is not the situation we want to be in 16 months into a pandemic where we have proven control measures. It is the time right now where everyone has to take stock and have a reality check about what we need to be doing.”
While WHO officials praised the promise of vaccines, they emphasized that the practices that have been implemented for a year now—social distancing, mask wearing, hand hygiene—are still essential in stopping infections and saving lives. The complacency and inconsistent enforcement of late are a big part of the reason the virus is still spreading at such a high rate.
New variants of the virus, which spread more easily and are more deadly, are also a concern, said Dr. Mike Ryan, head of emergency programs, who said COVID is ““stronger [and] faster” now than it was a year ago.
COVID-19 cases climbed by 9% globally last week. Deaths were up 5%.
