Aditi Tandon

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, July 3

The global number of new Covid-19 cases over the past week was over 2.6 million, a similar number compared to the previous week, but deaths continued to decline settling down at the lowest weekly mortality recorded since November 2020, WHO’s latest analyses of the pandemic shows. Brazil overtook India as the lead contributor of weekly new Covid cases.

The highest number of new cases was reported from Brazil (5,21,298 new cases; a 3 per cent increase over the past week), India (3,51,218; a 12 per cent increase), Colombia (2,04,132 new cases; 5 per cent increase), the Russian Federation (1,34, 465; a 24 per cent increase), and Argentina (1,31,824 new cases; an 11 per cent decrease).

More than 57,000 deaths were reported in the past week, a 10 per cent decrease as compared to the previous week. Globally, Covid-19 incidence remains very high with an average of over 3,70,000 cases reported each day over the past week. The cumulative number of cases reported globally now exceeds 180 million and the number of deaths is almost 4 million.

Although at the global level, trends in cases and deaths have been declining over the recent weeks, the world body said that well into the second year of the pandemic, “the global situation remains highly fragile”. “There is significant variation by region, by country and within countries. In all WHO regions, there are countries reporting sharp increases in cases and hospitalisations. Over the past 18 months, substantial progress has been made towards ending the acute phase of the Covid-19 pandemic. However, the combination of

more transmissible variants, increasing social mixing and sub-optimal vaccination coverage will delay the end of the pandemic,” warned the WHO.