Spike in global COVID deaths, reveals WHO report

World Health Organisation (WHO) reported on Thursday (June 16) that global COVID fatalities had seen a spike of 4 per cent last week. The spike has been observed after five weeks of declining death toll.

WHO issued its weekly assessment on Thursday. The agency said that 8700 Covid-19 deaths were registered last week. There has been a jump of 21 per cent in the Americas and a 17 per cent increase in Western Pacific.

The number of cases however, has seen a fall. 3.2 million new cases were reported last week. This has been as per the trend seen since January when there was a peak in infections.

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However, West Asia and Southeast Asia saw a spike in number of cases by 58 per cent and 33 per cent respectively.

Because many countries have reduced surveillance and testing, we know this number is under-reported, WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said earlier this week.

He said that there was nothing such as an acceptable level of COVID deaths especially since the world now has vaccines, medicines and diagnostics against the virus.

While many rich countries in Europe and North America have mostly dropped their virus restrictions, China's extreme Covid-19 policies have meant more mass testing, quarantines and sequestering of anyone who was in contact with a case.

China's capital put school back online this week in one of its major districts amid a new Covid-19 outbreak linked to a nightclub.

Residents in Beijing are still undergoing regular testing mostly every other day and must wear masks and swipe a mobile phone app to enter public places and facilitate case tracing.

(With inputs from agencies)