The chief of the World Health Organization said on Wednesday that even though the recent deaths due to COVID-19 have decreased by over 90% worldwide compared to nine months ago, still the pandemic is a severe threat because of the new emerging variants.

Additionally, he added that the worldwide testing and sequencing rates have gone low, immunization gaps between developed and developing nations increased, and new variants are constantly being discovered at an alarming rate.

According to the U.N. health agency, the number of newly reported COVID-19 cases worldwide for the week ending Sunday was over 2.1 million, which is down by 15% from the prior week. Weekly fatalities decreased by 10% from the previous week.

Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said that the number of deaths per week had exceeded 75,000 in February of this year and last week over 9,400 deaths due to coronavirus were reported to the WHO. The WHO has estimated that the epidemic has caused 6.5 million deaths and 629 million infections overall.

Further, WHO′s technical head on COVID-19, Maria Van Kerkhove, highlighted a "significant underestimate" of the viruss actual spread because testing and surveillance had decreased along with a dip in case counts. She said a primary focus right now is on hospitalizations and fatalities, adding that the coronavirus epidemic is "still a pandemic, and its still running fairly rampantly over the world."

Last week, Japan reported the maximum number of new COVID cases, with Korea, the United States, Germany, and China trailing behind. China reported 219,000 new cases last week, down by 15% from the previous week.

(Source: https://health.economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/industry/who-reports-90-drop-in-world-covid-19-deaths-since-february/95413020)