As of Sunday, the world recorded nearly 503.94 million cases of COVID-19, including more than 6.22 million deaths. The number of new global COVID-19 cases decreased by 22% against last week and Asia recorded the strongest decrease of 28%, followed by Europe 21% and Africa 19%.

In South Korea, the total number of new cases this week has decreased by 30% compared to last week. From the beginning of next week, South Korea will lift all social distancing regulations, except for wearing masks, ending more than two years of imposing strict measures against the COVID-19.

Countries in North America, South America and Europe are working to expand their vaccination programs against COVID-19 to protect people against the emergence of a new variant and the risk of a relapse of disease outbreak in the fall.

WHO has urged countries to carefully monitor disease developments so that they can prepare timely response plans. WHO is currently tracking Omicron subvariants BA.1, BA.2, BA.3, BA.4 and BA.5 as well as recombinant variants of BA.1 and BA.2 as BA.2 has become the dominant infectious variant globally.

Source: VOV5