Coronavirus tally: WHO head calls for ‘sustained’ effort to tackle long COVID, calling it ‘very serious’ crisis

The head of the World Health Organization made his strongest comments yet about the devastation being caused by long COVID and urged world leaders to launch immediate and “sustained” efforts to tackle the “very serious” crisis. Writing for The Guardian newspaper, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said the world has never been in a better position to end the pandemic that has killed almost 6.5 million and infected more than 600 million, but that many are experiencing “prolonged suffering” as symptoms linger for months. The WHO estimates than 10% to 20% of survivors suffer mid- and long-term symptoms such as fatigue, breathlessness and cognitive dysfunction. Women are more likely than men to suffer long COVID. U.S. known cases of COVID are continuing to ease and now stand at their lowest level since late April, although the true tally is likely higher given how many people overall are testing at home, where the data are not being collected. The daily average for new cases stood at 39,126 on Tuesday, according to a New York Times tracker, down 24% from two weeks ago. The daily average for hospitalizations was down 10% at 26,205, while the daily average for deaths is down 3% to 383. Globally, the confirmed case tally rose above 622.7 million on Wednesday, according to data aggregated by Johns Hopkins, while the death toll is above 6.56 million with the U.S. leading the world with 96.8 million cases and 1,063,338 deaths.