Geneva, Apr.15 (BNA): Global COVID-19 cases surpassed 500 million on Thursday, according to a Reuters tally, as the highly contagious BA.2 sub-variant of Omicron surges in many countries in Europe and Asia.
The rise of BA.2 has been blamed for recent surges in China as well as record infections in Europe. It has been called the “stealth variant” because it is slightly harder to track than others.
South Korea leads the world in the daily average number of new cases, reporting more than 182,000 new infections a day and accounting for one in every four infections globally, according to a Reuters analysis.
New cases are rising in 20 out of more than 240 countries and territories tracked, including Taiwan, Thailand and Bhutan.
Some European countries are now seeing a slower uptick in new cases, or even a decline, but the region is still reporting over 1 million cases about every two days, according to the Reuters tally.
The U.S. national public health agency said on Monday the BA.2 sub-variant of Omicron was estimated to account for nearly three of every four coronavirus variants in the country.
The BA.2 variant now makes up about 86% of all sequenced cases globally, according to the World Health Organization.
It is known to be more transmissible than the BA.1 and BA.1.1 Omicron sub-variants. Evidence so far, though, suggests BA.2 is no more likely to cause severe disease.
Scientists continue to emphasize vaccines are critical for avoiding the devastation the virus can cause.
Roughly 64.8% of the world population has received at least one dose of a COVID vaccine, although only 14.8% of people in low-income countries have received at least one dose, according to figures from Our World in Data.
About 6.5 million people have lost their lives to COVID since the pandemic began. The United States has reported the highest number of deaths, followed by Russia, Brazil and India.
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