GENEVA (AP) — The World Health Organization says a record 9.5 million cases of COVID-19 were tallied around the world over the last week, noting a 71% surge in the weekly count of infections amounting to a “tsunami” as the new omicron variant sweeps worldwide.

“Last week, the highest number of COVID-19 cases were reported so far in the pandemic,” WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said Thursday. He said the WHO was certain that was an underestimate because of a backlog in testing around the year-end holidays.

The U.N. health agency, in its weekly report on the pandemic, said the weekly count amounted to “just under” 9.5 million new cases and over 41 000 new deaths were reported during the last week.