Coronavirus: WHO says UK strain in over 60 countries as US death toll passes 400,000
- New Covid-19 variants causing deep concern as world grapples with how to slow infections
- The United States remains home to the world’s worst outbreak in overall numbers
.png?itok=arIb17P0)
The UK coronavirus strain has spread to at least 60 countries, the World Health Organization reported Wednesday, after the incoming US president Joe Biden led a moving tribute to 400,000 American victims.
Covid-19 has claimed more than two million lives globally since it was first detected in the Chinese city of Wuhan more than a year ago, while the total number of reported cases is edging towards 100 million, according to a Johns Hopkins University tally.
The arrival of mass inoculation drives in the United States, Europe and Asia had brought hope that the end of the epidemic was in sight.
But deep concern over new variants of the deadly pathogen has triggered governments around the world to toughen constraints on restriction-weary populations as officials grapple with how to slow infections until vaccines become widely available.
In its weekly update, the WHO announced the strain first found in the UK was now in 10 more countries than seven days ago.
02:33
Covid-19 death toll hits 400,000 in the United States
It said the South African variant – which similarly is believed to be more transmissible – has been reported in 23 countries and territories.
The number of new deaths climbed to a record high of 93,000 over the previous week, it added, with 4.7 million new cases reported over the same period.
Pandemic could be WHO’s ‘Chernobyl moment’ for reform
Almost a year after the US registered its first fatality, the pace of the pandemic has picked up with 100,000 deaths in the past month alone.
“It’s hard sometimes to remember, but that’s how we heal. It’s important to do that as a nation,” Biden said in sombre remarks on Tuesday in Washington at the National Mall reflecting pool, where lights were turned on as a memorial to those who have died.
“Let us shine the lights in the darkness along the sacred pool of reflection and remember all who we lost,” Biden said.
Biden has made tackling the pandemic his top priority taking office.
The situation in the Britain was also “perilous”, according to Home Secretary Priti Patel.
Britain on Tuesday registered another 1,610 fatalities from coronavirus, a record high over 24 hours since the pandemic arrived in 2020.
“When we still see hospitalisation figures, now standing at over 38,000 people, with the number of people still dying with coronavirus, with the number of hospital admissions increasing, this is no time to speak about the relaxation of measures,” Patel said on Wednesday. “We have a long way to go.”
Coronavirus in Chinese ice cream raises new alarm over infection via food
The UK’s total Covid-19 death tally on Tuesday stood at 91,470, with a further 33,355 new cases also reported over the previous day, taking the total number of infections to nearly 3.5 million.
But the number of new cases over the last week was down around 22 per cent, as a stringent lockdown announced earlier this month starts to have an effect.
Britain is currently gripped by its third and deadliest wave of the virus, blamed on the new strain.
An estimated 12 per cent of people in England had been infected with coronavirus by December last year, up from nine per cent in November, according to official antibody data released Tuesday.
One in 10 people in Wales, one in 13 in Northern Ireland and one in 11 in Scotland were also estimated to have caught the virus, according analysis of random blood test results published by the Office for National Statistics (ONS).
