COVID-19 Takes More Than A Year To Get 100 Million Infections, But Now The Positive Cases Have Crossed The 300 Million Mark On Earth

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JAKARTA - The world is still under threat. COVID-19 did take more than a year to record 100 million cases of the corona virus. And it will take half of that time to reach the next 100 million.

But what's horrifying, the 100 million all three of them came much faster. COVID-19 only takes five months.

Reporting from The Strait Times, citing the New York Times, Friday, January 7, this is all due to the fact that many rich and poor countries have not been evenly distributed about vaccines. And the emergence of new variants that are clever and capable of infecting those who are vaccinated.

The number of cases --- at least that's what's recorded at Johns Hopkins University -- has been a major barometer during the pandemic. Benchmark not only for governments implementing mitigation measures but also for people trying to understand threats in their own communities.

However, a growing number of experts are of the opinion that it is time to stop focusing on the number of cases.

Now the world is again faced with a new variant whose transmission rate is very fast. The Omicron variant is believed to have no serious symptoms and research shows that the vaccine still offers protection against the worst outcomes.

But in effect, positive cases are increasing faster than ever - the United States, Australia, France and many other countries are experiencing record spikes - hospitalizations. Thankfully death happened more slowly.

But experts worry that the sheer number of possible cases is still weighing on a health care system already strained by previous spikes.

This week, Dr Anthony Fauci, the US government's expert on infectious diseases, suggested it was time to stop focusing on case numbers.

"As you get further away and the infection becomes less severe, it's much more relevant to focus on hospitalization," he told ABC News Sunday.

About 60 percent of the world has received at least one dose of the Covid-19 vaccine, but nearly three-quarters of all injections have been given in the world's wealthiest countries, leaving people in parts of Africa and Asia vulnerable.

In the United States, daily cases have increased fivefold over the past month, while hospitalizations have only doubled.

In France, average daily cases have quadrupled to a record, while hospitalizations have increased by about 70 percent and deaths have doubled, according to the Our World in Data project at the University of Oxford.