The renowned Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, USA, announced about 503 million infections worldwide on Friday. According to WHO calculations, the actual number of infections is likely to be much higher anyway. On the one hand, few tests have always been done in many countries due to lack of material and testing capabilities. On the other hand, industrialized countries have also significantly reduced their testing.
For example, only 8.7 million infections have been reported to WHO in Africa so far. In studies in several African countries, however, significantly more corona infections were detected. The WHO therefore assumes that two-thirds of the estimated 1.3 billion Africans have already been infected with the Sars-CoV-2 coronavirus. The number of actual infections is believed to be 97 times higher than the confirmed cases reported.
The majority of infections were reported to WHO in the Europe region, totaling 209.5 million cases. Behind was the American continent with 151.7 million.
The WHO warns not to consider the pandemic over as the number of infections drops. In many poorer countries, even people who are particularly at risk – the elderly and nursing staff – are still not sufficiently vaccinated. As long as the virus circulates and many people are not protected, new and dangerous variants can develop and spread around the world, against which the current vaccine does not protect enough.