Aditi Tandon

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, July 21

Covid-19 resurgence is now visible in large parts of the world with Indonesia, UK, Brazil, India and the US emerging top contributors to the global caseload last week and new infections worldwide rising for the second straight week after nearly 50 days of steady decline.

The World Health Organisation (WHO) in its latest analysis said the global number of new cases reported last week was over 3.4 million, a 12 per cent increase over the previous week and “at the current rate, global cases could pass 200 million in three weeks”.

“Globally, Covid-19 weekly case incidence increased with an average of around 4,90,000 cases reported each day over the past week as compared to 4,00,000 cases reported daily in the previous week. The cumulative number of cases reported globally is now over 190 million and the number of deaths exceeds 4 million,” the WHO said, sounding an alarm as economies open up.

The WHO said despite efforts to extend vaccination coverage, many countries across all six WHO regions continued to experience surges in Covid-19 cases.

Over the past week, the highest numbers of new cases were reported from Indonesia (3,50,273; 44 per cent increase), the UK (2,96,447; 41 per cent increase), Brazil (2,87,610; 14 per cent decrease), India (2,68,843; 8 per cent decrease), and the US (2,16,433; 68 per cent increase). While Indonesia, the UK and the US are witnessing new waves, India is seeing a tapering of the rate of weekly decline in new cases.