In the first week of January, the number of reported cases of Covid-19 worldwide rose considerably. Worldwide the WHO is talking about 15 million new cases of Covid-19, a rise of 55% from the previous week.

As for the number of deaths, the WHO says it holds similar, 43,000 patients losing their lives in the same week.

The WHO also says that every region of the world had an increase in incidence in the last week except Africa, where total new cases fell by 11%. Southeast Asia was the region with the largest increase in Covid-19 positive cases, with a high of 418%.

Following in sequence are Western Pacific, with a 122% increase in new cases. The Eastern Mediterranean had a high of 86%, the Americas with an increase of 78%, and Europe with 31% more new infections.

Globally, since the pandemic began in December 2019, there have been 5.4 million deaths among more than 304 million Covid-19 cases.

WHO experts agree that current vaccines need to be adapted to remain effective against Omicron and future variants.