California now has more Covid-19 deaths than New York

The World Health Organization (WHO) warned on Thursday that a decline in overall virus cases conceals the increasing numbers of outbreaks and community spread involving new variants, with a strain first identified in South Africa late last year now seen in 19 countries.

California has now surpassed New York as the American state with the most coronavirus deaths. More than 45,000 people died from Covid-19 in California as of Tuesday. New York, severely hit in the early stages of the pandemic last spring, reported 44,693 lives lost, according to a Reuters tally.

People wear masks while walking past Wheeler Hall on the University of California campus in Berkeley, Calif. (AP)

The World Health Organization (WHO) warned on Thursday that a decline in overall virus cases conceals the increasing numbers of outbreaks and community spread involving new variants, with a strain first identified in South Africa late last year now seen in 19 countries.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel said coronavirus mutations will likely become dominant across the country, threatening to derail progress as a national lockdown was extended until March 7.

The Irish government said about 22% of close contacts are now catching the virus, double the rate in previous waves, suggesting that the new variants are more infectious.

Former US president Donald Trump’s disdain for science, coupled with cuts to the health programme, impeded US response to the pandemic, a report in the UK’s medical journal The Lancet said. Scientists found that 40% of US deaths in 2020 from Covid-19 would have been avoided if the country’s death rate had been closer to that of its G7 peers.