There were 15,250 new cases of Covid-19 in the community on Thursday, and 22 Covid-related deaths.
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The World Health Organisation says the severity of Covid-19 will most likely lessen over time as the virus mutates.
"Based on what we know now, the most likely scenario is that the Covid-19 virus continues to evolve, but the severity of disease it causes reduces over time as immunity increases due to vaccination and infection," WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said.
"Periodic spikes in Covid-19 cases and deaths may occur as immunity wanes, which may require periodic boosting for vulnerable populations.
"In the best-case scenario, we may see less severe variants emerge, and boosters or new formulations of vaccines won't be necessary."
However, he also warned about a possible spike in cases and deaths if a new variant emerged.
"In the worst-case scenario, a more virulent and highly transmissible Covid-19 virus variant emerges. Against this new threat, people's protection against severe disease and death, either from prior vaccination or infection, will wane rapidly," Dr Ghebreyesus said.
The report cautioned that the pandemic remained an acute global emergency.
More than 143 million new cases were reported globally in the first two months of 2022 alone.
Workers line up for a Covid test outside an office building in Beijing this month. Photo / AP
Almost six million deaths from Covid-19 had been reported to the WHO up to the end of February 2022, which the WHO described as "an unacceptably high number that is almost certainly an underestimate".
The WHO's report states that careful surveillance of Covid-19 transmission and a widespread vaccination programme are needed to end the acute phase of the pandemic.
Much of the world is already vaccinated but large populations in Africa and Papua New Guinea have not received doses.
The WHO said efforts must be focused primarily on vaccinating the most clinically vulnerable people in society.
The UN body said it could be necessary for governments to impose public health and social measures, even in periods of low circulation of SARS-CoV-2.
Deaths surge as reporting changes
The number of people killed by the coronavirus surged by more than 40 per cent last week, likely due to changes in how Covid-19 deaths were reported across the Americas and by newly adjusted figures from India, according to the WHO.
In its latest weekly report on the pandemic, the WHO said the number of new coronavirus cases fell everywhere, including in WHO's Western Pacific region, where they had been rising since December.
About 10 million new Covid-19 infections and more than 45,000 deaths were reported worldwide over the past week, following a 23 per cent drop in fatalities the week before.
The jump in reported deaths, up from 33,000 last week, was due mainly to an accounting change; WHO noted that countries including Chile and the United States altered how they define Covid-19 deaths.
People hold T-shirts featuring the photos of people who died of Covid-19, during a protest organised by Widows of Covid, in Rio de Janeiro. Photo / AP
In addition, more than 4000 deaths from Maharashtra state in India that initially weren't included among the Covid-19 death toll were added last week, according to WHO.
WHO has said repeatedly that Covid-19 case counts are likely a vast underestimate of the coronavirus' prevalence. The agency cautioned countries in recent weeks against dropping their comprehensive testing and other surveillance measures, saying that doing so would cripple efforts to accurately track the spread of the virus.
"Data are becoming progressively less representative, less timely and less robust," WHO said. "This inhibits our collective ability to track where the virus is, how it is spreading and how it is evolving: information and analyses that remain critical to effectively end the acute phase of the pandemic."
The agency warned that less surveillance would particularly harm efforts to detect new Covid variants and undermine a potential response.
Numerous countries across Europe, North America and elsewhere recently lifted nearly all their Covid-19 protocols, relying on high levels of vaccination to prevent another infection spike even as the more infectious Omicron subvariant BA.2 is causing an uptick in new cases.
A family hug as they look at names on the National Covid Memorial wall in London this week. Each heart represents a loved one who died from the virus. Photo / AP
British authorities have said that while they expect to see more cases, they have not seen an equivalent rise in hospitalisations and deaths.
Despite the global decline in reported cases, China locked down Shanghai this week to try to curb an Omicron outbreak that has caused the country's biggest wave of disease since the virus was first detected in the Chinese city of Wuhan in 2019.
United States officials expanded the use of vaccine boosters this week as regulators said Americans ages 50 and older can get a second booster at least four months after their last vaccination.
An AP-NORC poll, meanwhile found that less than half of Americans now regularly wear face masks, avoid crowds and skip non-essential travel.
