Health experts have warned against apathy as the reported daily number of coronavirus infections has fallen across the world for a month.
Falls in infections and deaths coincide with lockdowns and severe curbs on gatherings and movement as governments weigh the need to stop successive waves of the pandemic with the need to get people back to work and children back to school.
But optimism over a way out of the crisis has been tempered by new variants of the virus, raising fears about the efficacy of vaccines.
"Now is not the time to let your guard down," Maria Van Kerkhove, the World Health Organization's technical lead on COVID-19, told a briefing in Geneva.
"We cannot let ourselves get into a situation where we have cases rise again."
COVID-19 has hit some countries far harder than others, although differences in the way infections are counted locally make it impossible to make a perfect apples-to-apples comparison.
The World Health Organisation's Maria Van Kerkhove Source: AAP
There were 351,335 new infections reported worldwide on Tuesday on a seven-day average, the figure falling from 863,737 on 7 January.
There were 17,649 deaths on 26 January, falling to 10,957 on 16 February.
COVID-19 infections are decreasing in the United States, with 77,883 new infections reported on average each day.
That's 31 per cent of the peak - the highest daily average reported on 8 January.
There have been 27,902,387 infections and 490,795 coronavirus-related deaths reported in the United States since the pandemic began, the highest figures in the world.
Coronavirus infection rates in the UK capital have plunged by 80 per cent in the past month according to a study by the Imperial College London.
Researchers tested 85,000 people across England between 4 February and 13 February as part of the monthly study.
It suggested that about 1 in 200 people were infected, a fall of two thirds from the month before.
The decline varied across the country and was steepest in London, where a new and more contagious strain of the virus was identified late last year.
In January, an estimated 1 in 30 people in London had the virus.
Apprentice Nursing Associate Ellie Bull administers a dose of the AstraZeneca vaccine to a homeless person at east London, Friday, Feb. 5, 2021. Source: AAP
That has now fallen to about 1 in 185.
UK Health Secretary Matt Hancock said the decline in cases was "encouraging, but we must not drop our guard".
The UK has experienced Europe's worst coronavirus outbreak, with more than 118,000 deaths, and is in lockdown as a mass vaccination program pushes ahead at the continent's fastest rate.
So far 16 million people in the UK have had a first dose, about a quarter of the population.
So far, 85 countries have begun vaccinating people for the coronavirus and have administered at least 187,892,000 doses, according to the Reuters figures.
Gibraltar, a British Overseas Territory located on Spain's southern tip, lead the world and administered enough vaccine doses for 40 per cent of its population, assuming every person needs two doses.
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