The agency said weekly deaths from the virus worldwide are at their lowest level since March 2020 – the month Britain first went into lockdown. In the UK, infections have fallen to their lowest level in almost 11 months. “We’ve never been better placed to end the pandemic – we’re not there yet, but the end is in sight,” said the agency’s director-general, Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus. “A marathon runner doesn’t stop when the finish line appears, she runs harder, with whatever energy she has left. So should we. “We can see the finish line, we’re in a winning position. But now is the worst time to stop running.” He said it was time to “run harder,” adding: “If we don’t seize this opportunity now, we risk more variation, more death, more disruption and more uncertainty. So let’s seize this opportunity.” He called on the world to “end this pandemic together” and announced that the WHO is publishing six briefing papers outlining the actions governments must take now. The documents include guidance on testing, vaccination, best practices for disease management, maintaining infection control measures in health facilities, preventing the spread of misinformation, and community involvement. Read more: Women almost twice as likely as men to break COVID lockdown rules – here’s why COVID app that detects the virus in your voice ‘more accurate than lateral flow tests’ The WHO has estimated that 19.8 million deaths have been averted in 2021 thanks to Covid-19 vaccines and 12 billion doses have been administered worldwide. However, he warned that the virus was still an “acute global emergency” and stressed that in the first eight months of 2022 more than one million people had died from Covid-19.
