Global COVID-19 cases up for first time in weeks
pharmafile | March 17, 2022 | News story | Business Services |
After more than a month of decline, global cases of COVID-19 have increased. WHO have stated that cases of the virus increased by 8% across the globe during the week commencing 7 March, compared to the rates of the previous week.
South Korea’s daily COVID-19 infections have spiked beyond 400,000 for the first time, with authorities expecting the current wave to peak within the next two weeks.
Cases in the Pacific rose by almost 30% during the week of 7 March, while across all of the six regions covered by WHO, there were 11 million new cases, and roughly 43,000 new deaths reported.
In South Korea, the daily rates of the virus hit a record-high of 400,741 on 16 March, bringing the total to 7,629,275, according to the Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency (KDCA).
The western Pacific was the region to see the biggest increase in cases. This area includes countries such as China and Hong Kong. Daily deaths in Hong Kong attributed to COVID-19 recently overtook the levels seen across several European countries, and were the highest of any country.
The global surge accompanies statistics of UK cases of the virus, which in the past week have seen an increase of 49% in positive cases, and a raise of nearly 21% in hospital admissions.
Statistics from March 15 showed that one fifth of the 1.68 million cases of COVID-19 reported on that day were found in South Korea. European countries saw a 2% increase during the week commencing 7 March compared with the previous week. Countries in Africa saw a 12% increase, according to WHO.
In the UK, the number of COVID-19-positive patients in hospital reached 10,877 on March 15, while the spike in cases in the southeast and southwest of hospitals in England was the worst.
The spikes accompany concerns over the highly infectious ‘Deltacron’ variant. According to one statistic form the Office of National Statistics, one in 25 people are currently infected with COVID-19.
Ana Ovey
