Global Covid-19 deaths to top 100,000 a week ‘very soon,’ WHO warns

The rate of coronavirus fatalities around the globe is on the brink of surpassing 100,000 per week, the World Health Organization’s top emergency expert Mike Ryan has warned as the pandemic continues to rage more than a year on.

The disease is currently killing 93,000 people per week, but the 100,000 mark will be exceeded “very soon,” Ryan pointed out in his epidemiological update at the WHO’s executive board meeting on Monday.

“Currently our epidemiological situation is dynamic and uneven, it’s further complicated by variants” of the virus, he said. Thousands of strains of Covid-19 have already been discovered by scientists, with one variant detected in the UK late last year believed to be the most contagious.

The Americas region currently accounts for almost half of all coronavirus-related deaths. In Europe, infections and fatalities have stabilized, but still remain at a “high level,” the emergency health expert added.

According to WHO data, there have been more than 93 million confirmed cases of Covid-19 and more than two million deaths around the globe since the start of the pandemic in late 2019.

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