WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus and German Health Minister Jens Spahn said they aimed to enhance co-operation between countries and scientific institutes around the world and to assist in identifying early indications of a possible pandemic.

"One of the lessons of COVID-19 is that the world needs a significant leap forward in data analysis to help leaders make informed public health decisions," Tedros said.

Germany is to provide initial financing to the amount of 30 million euros ($A46 million).

Speaking by video, Chancellor Angela Merkel said that data formed an important basis for the battle against future pandemics.

"Data that, when bundled and processed with the right analytic tools, produce findings that we on our own would never discover, or at least not as quickly," she said.

"The WHO hub will make use of these technical opportunities and share the findings with all countries."

The centre will not become a new authority, WHO emergency aid coordinator Mike Ryan emphasised.

The aim was rather to set up a platform and tools with German support that would allow scientists all over the world to evaluate data.

Ryan said that governments, research institutes and other organisations were to be involved and artificial intelligence would play a major role.

Spahn said the centre depended entirely on the willingness of WHO member countries to cooperate and be transparent.

The closing hours of Egyptian stores, malls and restaurants will be brought forward to 9pm for two weeks from Thursday, straddling the last days of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan and Eid celebrations, the prime minister said on Wednesday.

Large gatherings and concerts will be banned over the same period and beaches and parks will be shut between May 12-16, Mostafa Madbouly said in a televised address.

The number of new coronavirus cases has been steadily rising in Egypt in recent weeks and officials have warned of infections spreading further as families meet during Ramadan, which ends next week, with Eid festivities to follow.

"As a government and as officials, we are deeply worried that citizens are not fully complying with health precautions... we are beginning to see that infections are happening on a familial scale, when one person gets sick (they infect) the whole family," Madbouly said.

Meanwhile, infections continue to spread fast across the Americas as a result of relaxed prevention measures and intensive care units are filling up with younger people, the director of the Pan American Health Organisation (PAHO) said on Wednesday.

In Brazil, mortality rates have doubled among those younger than 39, quadrupled among those in their 40s and tripled for those in their 50s since December, Carissa Etienne said.

Hospitalisation rates among those under 39 years have increased by more than 70 per cent in Chile and in some areas of the US more people in their 20s are now being hospitalised for COVID-19 than people in their 70s.

"Despite all we learned about this virus in a year, our control efforts are not as strict and prevention is not as efficient," Etienne said in a virtual briefing from Washington DC.

"We are seeing what happens when these measures are relaxed: COVID spreads, cases mount, our health systems become overwhelmed and people die," she said.

Canada continues to report significant jumps in infections in highly populated provinces such as Ontario as well as in less populated territories of the North and Yukon, home to remote and indigenous communities, according to PAHO.

Puerto Rico and Cuba remain significant drivers of COVID-19 cases in the Caribbean, which is facing a new surge of the virus, PAHO directors said.

Cases are rapidly accelerating in the Guianas and across Argentina and Colombia, where weekly case counts are five times higher now than they were this time last year and hospitals are reaching capacity in large Colombian cities.

In Central America, Guatemala is registering significant spikes in cases and Costa Rica is reporting record-high infections.

While vaccines are being rolled out as fast as possible, they are not a short-term solution because they are in short supply, said Etienne, the WHO's regional director.

Australian Associated Press