Covid-19 pandemic accelerating and global peak still to come, WHO says

World Health Organization (WHO) Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus attends a press conference organised by the Geneva Association of United Nations Correspondents (ACANU) amid the COVID-19 outbreak, caused by the novel coronavirus at WHO headquarters in Geneva on July 3, 2020. © Fabrice Coffrini, AFP

Some 400,000 new cases of Covid-19 were reported over the weekend and the new coronavirus pandemic shows no sign of slowing down, the World Health Organization said Tuesday.

"The outbreak is accelerating and we've clearly not reached the peak of the pandemic," WHO director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told a virtual press conference.

The World Health Organization also acknowledged Tuesday that there was "emerging evidence" on airborne transmission of the new coronavirus, after an international group of scientists said it could spread far beyond two metres.

"We acknowledge that there is emerging evidence in this field... therefore we believe that we have to be open to this evidence and understand its implications," the WHO's Professor Benedetta Allegranzi told a virtual press briefing.

(FRANCE 24 with AP and AFP)