The director of the World Health Organization said a drop in global COVID-19 cases and deaths should be welcomed with caution, since countries have reduced testing and other surveillance measures.
"Last week, just over 15,000 deaths were reported to WHO — the lowest weekly total since March 2020," Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, PhD, director-general of the WHO, said during an April 26 press conference. "This is a very welcome trend, but it's one that we should welcome with some caution," he said, pointing to a lack of insight into transmission as many countries have relaxed testing.
"This makes us increasingly blind to patterns of transmission and evolution. But this virus won't go away just because countries stop looking for it. It's still spreading, it's still changing and it's still killing," Dr. Tedros said. "WHO continues to call on all countries to maintain surveillance."
The warning comes as the prevalence of BA.2.12.1 — a more transmissible sublineage of BA.2 — rises in the U.S., accounting for about 29 percent of cases for the week ending April 23, according to the CDC's latest estimates. COVID-19 cases have increased about 61 percent nationwide over the past 14 days as of April 26, according to HHS data tracked by The New York Times.