Global COVID-19 cases up 11% last week, Omicron risk high: WHO

BERLIN (AP) — The World Health Organization (WHO) says the number of COVID-19 cases recorded worldwide increased by 11 per cent last week compared with the previous week, with the biggest increase in the Americas. The gain followed a gradual increase since October.

The U.N. health agency said in its weekly epidemiological report released late Tuesday that there were nearly 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 only a 3 per cent increase over the previous week. It also had the highest infection rate of any region, with 304.6 new cases per 100,000 residents.

WHO said that new cases in the Americas were up 39 per cent 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 per cent increase.

Reported new cases in Africa were up 7 per cent to nearly 275,000.

The agency said that “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.

It noted that 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 said that 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.”

WHO said that the number of newly reported deaths worldwide last week was down 4 per cent to 44,680.

U.S. health officials’ decision to shorten the recommended COVID-19 isolation and quarantine period from 10 days to five is drawing criticism from some medical experts and could create more confusion and fear among Americans.

To the dismay of some authorities, the new guidelines allow people to leave isolation without getting tested to see if they are still infectious.

The guidance has raised questions about how it was crafted and why it was changed now, in the middle of another wintertime spike in cases, this one driven largely by the highly contagious Omicron variant.

Monday’s action by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention cut in half the recommended isolation time for Americans who are infected with the coronavirus but have no symptoms. The CDC similarly shortened the amount of time people who have come into close contact with an infected person need to quarantine.

“Not all of those cases are going to be severe. In fact, many are going to be asymptomatic,” CDC Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky said Monday. “We want to make sure there is a mechanism by which we can safely continue to keep society functioning while following the science.”

CDC officials said the guidance is in keeping with growing evidence that people with the virus are most infectious in the first few days.

The CDC released a report Tuesday on a cluster of six omicron cases in a Nebraska household and found the median incubation period — the time between exposure and the appearance of symptoms — was about three days, versus the five days or more documented earlier in the pandemic. The six people also experienced relatively mild illness.

But other experts questioned why the CDC guidelines allow people to leave isolation without testing.