WHO: Record weekly jump in COVID-19 cases but fewer deaths

By JAMEY KEATEN
Associated Press

GENEVA (AP) — The World Health Organization says a record 9.5 million COVID-19 cases were tallied over the last week as the omicron variant of the coronavirus swept the planet, a 71% increase from the previous 7-day period that the U.N. health agency likened to a “tsunami.” But there was a decrease in the number of new deaths recorded. “Last week, the highest number of COVID-19 cases were reported so far in the pandemic,” WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said Thursday. He said the WHO was certain that was an underestimate because of a backlog in testing around the year-end holidays. The U.N. health agency, in its weekly report on the pandemic, said the weekly count amounted to 9,520,488 new cases.