Paris: The world recorded an average of more than two million daily coronavirus cases between January 1 and January 7, doubling in 10 days, an AFP tally showed on Saturday.
Immediately after the one million case threshold was passed in the week of December 23-29, 2021, an average of 2,106,118 new daily infections were recorded over a period of seven days.
The number of new global cases has increased by 270 per cent since the discovery of the highly infectious Omicron variant in South Africa in late November.
But Covid-related deaths were at their lowest level since October 2020, with an average of 6,237 recorded per day in the period from January 1 to January 7.
Although early studies suggest that omicrons cause less severe disease, experts warn that the sheer volume of cases affected by stress can still overwhelm health systems.
Countries around the world have reimposed restrictions and intensified vaccination programs to curb the spread of the virus.
Europe, as well as the United States and Canada, are the world’s hotspots of infection. Both the regions represented 49 per cent and 33 per cent respectively of the global COVID cases in the past one week.
Compared to the previous week, there was an increase of 47 percent in Kovid cases in Europe and 76 percent in America and Canada.
Over the same period, Oceania grew by 224 percent, Latin America and the Caribbean by 148 percent, the Middle East by 116 percent and Asia by 145 percent.
The number of new cases reported in Africa remained stable, but as elsewhere, was at its highest level since the start of the pandemic in March 2020.
The figures are based on official figures prepared by national health authorities.
Despite intensive testing arrangements since the start of the pandemic, a significant proportion of less severe or asymptomatic cases are not known.
Testing policies also differ from country to country.
The World Health Organization has estimated the overall death rate to be two to three times higher, taking into account the high mortality rate associated with COVID-19.
Philippines confirms record daily COVID-19 infections.