KFOR:
In the U.N. health agency’s weekly report on the pandemic issued late Tuesday, WHO said there were more than 11 million new COVID-19 infections last week – about an 8% rise – and 43,000 new deaths. The number of COVID-19 deaths globally has been dropping for the past three weeks.
“COVID’s not gone,” said Dr. Dale Bratzler, OU’s Chief COVID Officer.
The biggest increase in cases were seen in the Western Pacific and Africa, where infections rose by 29% and 12% respectively. In Europe, cases inched up by about 2%.
The jump in cases is being blamed on the stealth omicron variant, which is even more contagious than the original omicron variant.
“It’s a subvariant of the original omicron. It’s even more contagious than omicron, but doesn’t appear to cause any more severe disease,” he said.