Geneva (dpa) – Global coronavirus infections and deaths have sharply risen for a seventh consecutive week, the World Health Organization (WHO) said on Monday, warning the pandemic is at a «critical point.»
«The trajectory of this pandemic right now, it is growing exponentially,» the WHO’s chief Covid-19 scientist, Maria Van Kerkhove, said in Geneva.
Last week, she said, 4.4 million new infections were reported, up from about 500,000 cases at this time a year ago.
The delivery and administration of vaccines, which remains wildly uneven across the globe, is not enough to stem the rising tide of cases, Van Kerkhove said.
«We are in a critical point in the pandemic right now,» she said.
She urged people to keep taking the basic precautions that have been repeated for months: keep physically distant, wear face masks, ventilate rooms and wash hands.
WHO experts noted that, if the number of new infections keeps growing at this pace, it makes the occurrence of potentially worrying mutations more likely.
«This pandemic is a long way from over,» WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told reporters.