WHO
Reuters Connect

The World Health Organization announced on Monday that the global pandemic is worsening but transmission from asymptomatic persons is now becoming rare.

The Pandemic is Worsening Globally

In the past few days, there were many reports that COVID-19 is now becoming less lethal. An Italian doctor even claimed that the new coronavirus has lost its potency. However, WHO officials debunk this claim and announced that the pandemic is worsening.

During the daily press briefing, WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus warned about the worsening condition of the global pandemic even as the situation in Europe was improving. He emphasized that 75 percent of cases reported to the WHO on Sunday came from 10 countries in the Americas and South Asia.

WHO noted that 100,000 cases were reported in the past 10 days while 136,000 were reported on Sunday, the highest record so far. In fact, when Brazil has reached its death toll to 34,000 they immediately stopped reporting. They are now the third country in the world with the highest death toll. They are just below the United States and Britain.

Asymptomatic Spread is Now Becoming Rare

Meanwhile, while the WHO debunk that the pandemic is becoming less lethal, they also announced on Monday that the spread of virus coming from asymptomatic is now becoming rare. This just simply means that asymptomatic person but tested positive for the virus have isolated themselves to make sure not to transmit the virus.

Dr. Maria Van Kerkhove told the reporters during the news briefing that they have reports from countries who are "doing very detailed contact tracing - they are following asymptomatic cases, they are following contacts and they are not finding secondary transmission onward, it's very rare. Much of that is not published in the literature," she said

She added that while they are still trying to get more information from countries to confirm this, "it appears to be rare that an asymptomatic individual actually transmits onward."

Updates of COIVD-19 Around the Globe

The number of COVID-19 infections across the globe has continued to increase. As of this time, there are more than 7.2 million COVID-19 cases and a death toll of more than 400,000. Meanwhile, more than 3.5 million has recovered from the virus according to worldometers.

The United States remained as the country with the highest number of infections with more than 2.2 million COVID-19 cases and a death toll of more than 113,000. The U.S. according to Johns Hopkins School of Medicine. Health experts believed that the number of infections is expected to spike due to the mass protest where social distancing and wearing of facemasks are not observed.

Meanwhile, Brazil leads Latin America as the country with the highest number of infections. As of today, the country has recorded more than 710,000 COVID-19 infections and more than 37,000 death toll.

There is no sign yet that COVID-19 has weakened. In fact, pharmaceutical companies and scientists around the globe are on the race of developing the vaccine and put in on clinical trials to put an end to the deadly virus that originated in Wuhan, China.

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