Number Of COVID-19 Cases Reaches One Million Per Week, WHO Warns Of Scarcity Of Oxygen Concentrate

Illustration (Source: Julia Lobkova / Unsplash)

JAKARTA - The increase in COVID-19 cases is reaching one million people per week worldwide today. As a result, the World Health Organization has warned that hospitals will lack the oxygen concentrators needed to support COVID-19 patients.

"Currently, many countries have difficulty obtaining oxygen concentrators," said WHO Director General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus as quoted by The Guardian. "The current demand exceeds the existing supply," he said.

Tedros said the WHO has purchased 14,000 oxygen concentrators which it plans to deliver to 120 countries in the coming weeks. WHO also said 170,000 concentrate is being made available in the next six months.

As of Thursday, the total number of COVID-19 cases in the world reached 9.4 million people. The WHO estimates global infections will exceed 10 million cases by the end of this week. So far at least 480,000 people have died from the new coronavirus.

Meanwhile, the United States registered the second-highest spike in cases in 24 hours with 34,700 new cases. The data released by the University of Oxford recorded the second highest data since April 26. At that time, the number of cases increased in one day to 48,529.

Researchers from the University of Washington's Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation estimate that deaths from COVID-19 in the US will reach 180,000 by October 1. That number is up from the current number of 121,969.

The head of the WHO's emergencies program, Mike Ryan said many Latin American countries have seen a 25 percent to 50 percent increase in cases in the past week. "The situation (pandemic) in America in general is still developing, has not yet reached its peak and is likely to continue to develop," said Ryan.

Mexico, for example, has so far recorded the second-highest number of COVID-19 deaths with 947 as of Wednesday. The highest daily toll was recorded on June 3 with 1,092 deaths.