The World Health Organization, W.H.O.’s global dashboard of Covid-19 says 263,000 new cases were reported in the previous 24 hours, while 856 new Covid-19 deaths had been reported in the past week.

W.H.O. Director General, Tedros Ghebreyesus acknowledged on Wednesday that the global situation has improved since the pandemic began, but he warned that the virus continues to change and there remain many risks and uncertainties.

The WHO’s Covid-19 technical lead Maria Van Kerkhove, also warned that there were still millions of cases being reported each week.

She stressed that the more the virus circulates, the more opportunities it has to change.

The Omicron variant accounts for basically all virus samples that are sequenced, with more than 300 sub lineages of the variant recorded.