COVID-19 cases decline 19% in world; South Korea sets daily record

UPI

COVID-19 is subsiding worldwide with a 1% weekly decline in deaths and 19% drop in cases as only Russia, Germany, Netherlands and South Korea set national daily marks among large nations in the past week.

With coronavirus waning and vaccine usage percentages rising, nations are dropping restrictions, including lockdowns and required mask wearing and social distancing.

In the past seven days, global cases increased 16,053,879 for a total of 411,660,354, according to tracking by Worldometers.info so far Sunday. Deaths, which lag a few weeks behind infections, increased to 72,744, for a total of 5,831,689. One week ago, the cases declined 15% and deaths went up 10%.

Cases hit a daily record of 3,803,734 Jan. 20, and it dropped Saturday to 1,884,721. On Dec. 13, it was down to 480,954. During the height of the Delta variant spike, cases reached 904,084 on April 29…