Roshan Abraham and Kavya Ba

(Reuters) – The number of global COVID-19-related cases grew to more than 400 million, according to a Reuters tally. This is due to Omicron, a highly contagious variant, driving many countries’ health systems to their limits.

Omicron is the dominant variant in the worldwide surge. It accounts for nearly all the cases that are reported every day. While cases have begun to level off in many countries, more than 2 million cases are still being reported on average each day, according to a Reuters analysis https://tmsnrt.rs/34pvUyi. According to the 7-day average, death rates, which tend not to be as high as cases, increased by 70% during the last 5 weeks.

Although preliminary data from many countries has shown Omicron to be milder than other variants, large numbers of Omicron cases could potentially overwhelm healthcare systems worldwide.

According to Reuters, it took more than a month to get COVID cases from 300 million to 400 million. It only took five months to achieve 300 million cases from 200 million. Over 6 million people have been killed by the pandemic.

The top five countries reporting the most cases on a seven-day average – United States, France, Germany, Russia, and Brazil – account for roughly 37% of all new cases reported worldwide, according to Reuters analysis.

With a staggering one million cases being reported every day in America, the United States is the leader in this area. According to Reuters, the number of hospitalizations and cases in this country is declining from January’s peak. On Friday, the country surpassed 900,000 deaths related to COVID https://www.reuters.com/world/us/us-coronavirus-deaths-surpass-900000-driven-part-by-omicron-surge-2022-02-05.

France has seen an average seven-day rate of over 210,000 new infections per day. This is in addition to the approximately one million cases that are added every five days. The cumulative total for confirmed COVID cases in France since the start of the pandemic passed 20 million https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/number-confirmed-covid-cases-france-rises-over-20-million-2022-02-03 last Thursday.

Half of the new infections worldwide came from Europe. 21 countries are still at their peak. Since the outbreak, more than 131 million COVID cases have been reported in Europe. This includes over 2,000,000 deaths.

While Europe is reporting an average of a million cases per day, certain countries have begun to lift restrictions in response to the local outbreak. Spain is no longer requiring people to wear masks outside, and has begun a larger rollback of the restrictions in response to the decreasing spread of contagion. Greece allowed tourists to travel to Greece with their European vaccination certificate on Monday. They don’t need to have a negative COVID test.

Last Friday, India’s death toll https://www.reuters.com/world/india/india-reports-over-500000-deaths-covid-19-experts-count-millions-more-2022-02-04 from COVID-19 crossed 500,000, a level many health experts say was breached last year but obscured by inaccurate surveys and unaccounted deaths. One study that used three different databases to estimate the number of people who died due to COVID-19 has been published in Science. It states that 3 million Indians have already died as a result.

As of January 25, the most popular Omicron variant was BA.1. It accounted for 98.8% sequenced cases that were submitted to GISAID’s public virus tracking system GISAID. But several countries are reporting recent increases in the subvariant known as BA.2 https://www.reuters.com/business/healthcare-pharmaceuticals/scientists-alert-over-rising-cases-caused-by-omicron-cousin-ba2-2022-01-30, according to the World Health Organization.

Our World in Data figures show that 62% of the global population have been vaccinated with a COVID vaccine. Only 11% of low-income populations have had at most one dose.