100M new COVID-19 cases reported in less than a month worldwide

The world saw 100 million COVID-19 cases in just the past month amid the spread of the extremely infectious omicron variant. 

On Tuesday, the world reached more than 400 million known coronavirus cases, just a month after hitting 300 million, according to The New York Times.

The already-high figures are almost certainly an undercount given that many at-home positive rapid test results are not included in the count and not all people infected with the virus are tested for a variety of reasons.  

Though cases were still pervasive at the beginning of the pandemic, it took more than a year since the first detection of a COVID-19 case for the globe to see its first 100 million cases, a milestone reached in January 2021. The next 100 million cases came in a shorter time frame of about seven months, the Times added. 

Despite the record-setting milestone, daily case numbers have started to decline after an overwhelming surge in infections fueled by omicron.

The Biden administration’s chief medical adviser Anthony Fauci said on Tuesday that the country is moving away from the “full-blown” pandemic phase.

“As we get out of the full-blown pandemic phase of COVID-19,” Fauci said, discussing policy, “which we are certainly heading out of, these decisions will increasingly be made on a local level rather than centrally decided or mandated. There will also be more people making their own decisions on how they want to deal with the virus.”