Global COVID-19 deaths up for first time in six weeks, WHO says

A top expert at the World Health Organization (WHO) on Monday said that COVID-19 deaths are seeing a “slight increase” for the first time in six weeks, a trend that she called a “worrying sign.”

“I do want to mention that it had been about six weeks where we were seeing decreases in deaths,” Maria Van Kerkhove, technical lead on COVID-19 at the United Nations health agency, told reporters. “And in the last week, we’ve started to see a slight increase in deaths across the world, and this is to be expected if we are to see increasing cases. But this is also a worrying sign.”

Kerkhove also reported that four WHO regions are seeing an increase in transmission, making the fifth straight week of increasing transmission globally.

In the last week, she said, cases have increased by 8 percent, and 12 percent in Europe.

Kerkhove said that the increase in Europe is being driven by “several countries across the European region,” in addition to the coronavirus variant that was first discovered in the United Kingdom that is now circulating in several countries in the eastern part of Europe.