Associated Press, Wednesday 31 August 2022
GENEVA (AP) — The number of new coronavirus cases and deaths reported globally continued to fall nearly everywhere in the world in what the World Health Organization described as a “welcome decline” at a media briefing on Wednesday. The UN health agency said there were 4.5 million new COVID-19 cases reported last week, a 16% drop from the previous week. Deaths were also down by 13%, with about 13,500 fatalities. WHO said COVID-19 infections dropped everywhere in the world while deaths decreased everywhere except for Southeast Asia, where they climbed by 15%, and in the Western Pacific where they rose by 3%.
WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus warned that with the coming onset of winter in the Northern Hemisphere and the possible emergence of a more dangerous new COVID-19 variant, experts expect to see a spike in hospitalisations and deaths. He noted that 30% of health workers and 20% of older people remain unimmunised: “These vaccination gaps pose a risk to all of us. Please get vaccinated if you are not and a booster if it’s recommended that you have one.” In The US, the Food and Drug Administration cleared its first update to COVID-19 vaccines — booster doses that target today’s most common omicron strain. The new US boosters are combination, or ‘bivalent,’ shots containing half the original vaccine recipe and half protection against the newest omicron versions BA.4 and BA.5, considered the most contagious yet. The European Medicines Agency is also reviewing combination COVID-19 vaccine options from Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna.