The world has surpassed the benchmark of half a billion reported Covid-19 cases. However, as several countries reduced their testing capacities despite the continued spread of infections, the figure is expected to be much higher.
As of Tuesday, more than 500 million infections were recorded, according to the John Hopkins Insitute's Coronavirus Resource Centre. This figure is up from around 310 million at the start of 2022. This number is deemed to be an underestimation of the exact total count, due to countries' varying, and waning, testing strategies.
At the start of February, the Director-General of the World Health Organisation (WHO), Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, already criticised the fact that nations were dropping their Covid-19 measures despite the outbreak of the more transmissible Omicron subvariant BA.2. It is believed that dropping measures has resulted in many cases going undetected.
Tedros at the time said he was concerned about claims in some countries that the infectiousness and low-risk nature of Omicron made the fight against the virus "impossible" and "no longer necessary" – a mistake, he said.
Belgium's changing rules
Adhanom Ghebreyesus said countries were giving up on fighting the pandemic, choosing instead to go back to normal life. Countries like the United Kingdom and the United States were lifting measures in the midst of a rise in infections, with the former relaxing and then halting its testing programme relatively early on.
Belgium relaxed its testing and quarantine measures for vaccinated people who had a high-risk contact earlier this year. Virologists and health experts later criticised the move.
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Several weeks later, most measures were lifted in the country, a move which was once again condemned by health experts, and also resulted in cases slightly increasing for several weeks.
Now, both in Belgium and around the globe, the number of new cases being reported has been declining once again. Globally, deaths as a result of the virus have fallen by almost a quarter as well. Meanwhile, more than 5.1 billion people – around 66% of the world’s population – have received at least one dose of a coronavirus vaccine.
New Omicron variants – the BA.4 and BA.5 Omicron sub-variants – have been detected in several countries, including Belgium, however, it is unclear what the impact of this will be.
