WHO chief says COVID's end is 'in sight'
World Health Organization Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus on Wednesday said global data is showing while "we are not there yet," the end of COVID-19 "is in sight."
Last week, the number of reported COVID-19 cases dropped to a low not seen since March 2020, the beginning of the pandemic. Deaths fell by 22 percent in the past week, WHO said, to around 11,000, and the number of new cases dropped 28 percent to 3.1 million.
This isn't the time to get too relaxed, Tedros warned, adding that it's possible many cases are going unreported due to eased COVID-19 testing and surveillance in many parts of the world. "Now is the worst time to stop running," he said. "Now is the time to run harder and make sure we cross the line and reap all the rewards of our hard work." If countries don't stay on offense against COVID, "we run the risk of more variants, more deaths, more disruption, and more uncertainty," Tedros declared.
Subscribe to The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
The Omicron subvariant BA.5 remains the most prevalent, showing up in almost 90 percent of virus samples worldwide. In the United States, Europe, and other parts of the globe, regulators have approved use of vaccines that have been reformulated to target the original COVID-19 strain and the BA.5 and BA.4 subvariants.
Sign up for Today's Best Articles in your inbox
A free daily email with the biggest news stories of the day – and the best features from TheWeek.com
Catherine Garcia has worked as a senior writer at The Week since 2014. Her writing and reporting have appeared in Entertainment Weekly, The New York Times, Wirecutter, NBC News and "The Book of Jezebel," among others. She's a graduate of the University of Redlands and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.
-
'Welcome to America's customer service nightmare'
Instant Opinion Opinion, comment and editorials of the day
By Justin Klawans, The Week US Published
-
2024: the year of the X-odus
IN THE SPOTLIGHT How a year of controversy turned social media juggernaut X into 2024's hottest platform to leave
By Rafi Schwartz, The Week US Published
-
Was Jimmy Carter America's best ex-president?
Today's Big Question Carter's presidency was marred by the Iran hostage crisis, but his work in the decades after leaving office won him global acclaim
By Sorcha Bradley, The Week UK Published
-
US won its war on 'murder hornets,' officials say
Speed Read The announcement comes five years after the hornets were first spotted in the US
By Peter Weber, The Week US Published
-
Dark energy data suggest Einstein was right
Speed Read Albert Einstein's 1915 theory of general relativity has been proven correct, according to data collected by the Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument
By Peter Weber, The Week US Published
-
New DNA tests of Pompeii dead upend popular stories
Speed Read An analysis of skeletal remains reveals that some Mount Vesuvius victims have been wrongly identified
By Peter Weber, The Week US Published
-
NASA's Europa Clipper blasts off, seeking an ocean
Speed Read The ship is headed toward Jupiter on a yearslong journey
By Peter Weber, The Week US Published
-
Detailed map of fly's brain holds clues to human mind
Speed Read This remarkable fruit fly brain analysis will aid in future human brain research
By Peter Weber, The Week US Published
-
What does Covid look like in 2024?
Today's Big Question Disease experts are calling for closer monitoring as new variant fuels rise in infections
By Chas Newkey-Burden, The Week UK Published
-
Blind people will listen to next week's total eclipse
Speed Read While they can't see the event, they can hear it with a device that translates the sky's brightness into music
By Peter Weber, The Week US Published
-
Melting polar ice is messing with global timekeeping
Speed Read Ice loss caused by climate change is slowing the Earth's rotation
By Peter Weber, The Week US Published