After the number of newly reported Covid cases has dropped to the lowest level since March 2020, the head of the World Health Organization (WHO), Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said on Wednesday that although we’re not there yet, we’ve never been in a better position to end the pandemic.
Following a 12% drop a week earlier, the WHO’s latest epidemiological report on Covid-19 during the week ending September 11 shows that the number of reported cases fell 28% to 3.1 million.
However, the WHO technical lead on Covid, Maria Van Kerkhove has said that the falling number of reported cases is deceptive and an underestimate, since many countries may not be detecting the less serious cases because they have cut back on testing.
Cautioning that the coronavirus is circulating around the world at a very intense level at the present time, Van Kerkhove noted that far more cases are actually circulating than are being reported.
While the rest of the world gradually lifts restrictions, Beijing continues to lock down parts of China and conduct mass testing to eradicate coronavirus within its borders.
The WHO has recorded more than 605 million cases and about 6.4 million deaths since the start of the pandemic though both those numbers are also believed to be serious undercounts.
With regards to the second most serious issue related to Covid infection, the so-called ‘long Covid’, new research suggests that symptoms during the first two years of the Covid pandemic, at least 17 million people in the EU may have experienced long Covid-19, with women being more prone to the condition than men.
The report said at least 17 million met the WHO’s criteria of long Covid in 2020 and 2021, with symptoms lasting at least three months without explaining if those symptoms were more common in vaccinated or unvaccinated patients.
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