(Geneva) The risk level associated with the Omicron variant remains very high, estimates the World Health Organization (WHO) in its weekly bulletin, with the number of COVID-19 contamination cases hitting a new record last week.
Posted yesterday at 8:22 PM.
“Based on the currently available data, the overall risks associated with Omicron remain very high,” the organization warned.
“More than 21 million new cases were recorded (in the past seven days), which is the highest number of weekly cases recorded since the beginning of the epidemic,” she said.
The organization said the number of new cases increased by 5% over the past week, compared to 20% in the previous week. She said the overall infection rate was increasing “slower”.
The World Health Organization also reported 50,000 new deaths, a flat number from last week.
The Omicron variant is still prevalent worldwide. The spread of the delta variable is “continuously decreasing” while the spread of the alpha, beta and gamma variables is “very low (ly)”.
Currently, “countries that experienced an increase in omicron cases in November and December 2021 have experienced or are beginning to see a decrease in cases,” the WHO added.
Omicron made up 89.1% of coronavirus samples collected and tested in the past 30 days.
The data, uploaded to the global database GISAID, also shows that Delta, which was previously dominant, now accounts for only 10.7% of cases.