The World Health Organization (W.H.O.) reported late Tuesday the number of global coronavirus cases jumped by 11 percent over the last seven days compared to the previous week, with the biggest increase in the Americas. The gain builds on a gradual increase since October.
The U.N. health agency delivered an overview stating some 4.99 million newly reported cases around the world from Dec. 20-26.
Europe accounted for more than half the total, with 2.84 million, though that amounted to barely a three percent increase over the previous week. It also had the highest infection rate of any region, with 304.6 new cases per 100,000 residents.
The Chinese Communist government on Monday also admitted to its worst coronavirus case numbers in over 20 months, as Breitbart News reported.
The governing regime acknowledged 200 new coronavirus infections, 150 of them in Xi’an, a provincial capital with a population of 13 million that has been under strict lockdown for the past week. Xi’an has now logged a total of 810 cases, including a 38-day-old infant boy.
W.H.O. said new cases elsewhere in the Americas rose 39 percent to nearly 1.48 million, and the region had the second-highest infection rate with 144.4 new cases per 100,000 residents. The U.S. alone saw more than 1.18 million cases, a 34 percent increase, even as nation-wide vaccination programs remain in full swing.
The seven-day average of U.S. cases topped 267,000 on Tuesday, with Washington, D.C., Maryland and Virginia particularly hard hit.
Meanwhile the BBC reports in Europe:
Infections in Italy topped 78,000 cases, hitting a new record since the start of the pandemic. It also recorded 202 deaths, bringing the total number of deaths in the country to 136,753
Portugal also recorded a new total of 17,172 cases on Tuesday, a rise on Monday’s total
Greece’s Health Minister, Thanos Plevris, called for calm after the country reported 21,657 cases
Cyprus also recorded a single-day record high of infections, with 2,241 new cases
Health authorities in England reported a record 117,093 cases. Full UK-wide coronavirus data has been unavailable over the Christmas period
The agency said “the overall risk related to the new variant … omicron remains very high.” It cited “consistent evidence” that it has a growth advantage over the delta variant, which remains dominant in parts of the world.
As of 26 December, over 278 million cases and just under 5.4 million deaths have been reported globally as restrictions return in many countries.
It noted a decline in case incidence has been seen in South Africa, and that early data from that country, the U.K. and Denmark suggest a reduced risk of hospitalization with omicron.
But it cautioned more data is needed “to understand the clinical markers of severity including the use of oxygen, mechanical ventilation and death, and how severity may be impacted by vaccination and/or prior … infection.”
AP contributed to this report