From Our Bureau
NEW DELHI: The Coronavirus pandemic, now in its third year, has reached a monumental scale across the world. Countries have now logged 500 million confirmed cases of Covid-19, including more than 200 million in this year alone.
Compared with two weeks ago, The New York Times said cases are down 34 per cent to about 1 million per day, and deaths are down 24 per cent to about 3,700 per day.
But the true numbers are almost certainly much higher because of a lack of sufficient testing in many countries, including the United States. A W.H.O analysis estimated that 65 percent of Africans had been infected as of September 2021 — nearly 100 times the number of confirmed cases on the continent.
Heath experts and regional authorities have voiced concerns that the lack of adequate testing could limit the world’s preparedness. “If you don’t test,” said one epidemiologist, “then you don’t know what variants you have.”
In other pandemic developments:
The C.D.C. said it would extend a mask requirement on planes and public transit, which had been set to expire, for an additional two weeks.
New Zealand welcomed thousands of tourists from Australia as it begins to reopen to international travelers.
Beijing has stuck with a zero-Covid strategy that could end up hurting everyone, our New New World columnist writes.
As many as 200,000 U.S. children have lost a parent to the coronavirus. Grandparents are stepping up to raise them.
