More than 12 million people were infected with the coronavirus infection last week, with more than 32,000 deaths, the World Health Organization (WHO) reported Wednesday night.

The number of detected infections rose 7 percent over the previous seven days, and the number of deaths fell 23 percent.

After a substantial decline since late January, the number of new cases of COVID-19 increased for the second week in a row, with a 7% increase from 14 March to 20 March. At the same time,  deaths were declining. In the past seven days, there were 23% fewer deaths than in the previous week. A total of 12,384,300 people were reported to the WHO. There have been 32,959 deaths.

A 21% increase in infections since the previous week (7-13 March) has been seen in the Western Pacific region. Europe, which accounted for 42% of new infections worldwide over the week, remained stable and decreased in the other four WHO regions. Particularly significant declines were recorded in the eastern Mediterranean (41%). Deaths increased in the Western Pacific Region (5%). It decreased in the other regions, especially in the Americas (by 42%) and the Eastern Mediterranean (by 38%). In Africa there was a decrease of 19% and in Europe a decrease of 15%.

The Republic of Korea reported the highest number of infections during the week (2,817,214). They are followed by Vietnam (1,888,694), Germany (1,538,666), France (582,344) and Australia (513,388). Russia recorded the most deaths in seven days (3,681). This is followed by the United States (3,612), Brazil (2,242), the Republic of Korea (2,033) and China (1,921).

On Tuesday, the WHO reported 470,839,745 infections and 6,092,933 deaths. The number of those infected increased by 1,244,012 and the number of deaths by 14,865 over 24 hours.