Scientists say comparing the prevalence of Covid to the flu, which kills about 650,000 people globally each year, will become an important yardstick come next fall and winter. Covid has killed more than 3.8 million people since the start of 2020, but vaccinated countries should eventually be able to treat its periodic resurgences in the same way as they do the flu — and make policy decisions accordingly.

New cases are up nearly 30% in the past week and deaths are up by 15%, she said, with five countries — South Africa, Tunisia, Zambia, Uganda and Namibia — accounting for 76% of the new cases. The continent of 1.3 billion people has not yet been battered with an emergency during the pandemic on the scale of that recently facing India, but officials including Moeti continue to warn that such a catastrophe could hit.
“Africa is in the midst of a full blown third wave…We’ve seen in India and elsewhere how quickly COVID-19 can rebound and overwhelm health systems,” Matshidiso Moeti, WHO regional director for Africa, told a news conference.

The life/annuity segment raised its dollar exposure in hedge funds 5.8%, to $5.4 billion, and the property/casualty segment, 5.5%, to $6.6 billion.
Several qualities made hedge funds attractive to investors during the pandemic, including risk diversification and a low correlation to other asset classes. The hedge fund industry still lost approximately $44.5 billion in asset flows in 2020, according to the report, but that is nearly half the amount pulled out in 2019.