The "fold" has its equal in the german "fach" which means x*n of the n-fold. The "times" is just a synonymous term that developed too.

I think you might get confused here, because it is usually used in the context of something having increased tenfold, which us often used to describe the result of an exponential growth. Nobody says "it increased twofold". Outside of scientific topics, language doesnt really refer to exponential growth. As we saw with Covid, it is a concept difficult to grasp for people in general and it is not part of the day to day language.

Other way around, if I have 2 apples and you have 10-fold more, is where I think it gets confusing. I think there are some limited scientific/mathematics contexts where n-fold refers to powers of 2 but that appears to differ from the colloquial meaning which is just a synonym for times.

I thought infectious diseases was one of those contexts, but I guess not.

Thanks for letting me know. I thumbed through the article just to make sure and noticed the number was different, but figured if it changed once it would change multiple times and didn't want to play a pointless game of catch up when my issue was over the use of a term, not the specific number.

I had hoped the WHO would use more scientifically precise language, especially since they're supposed to be a trusted authority on this subject. I think organizations which muddy the waters on terms like this, intentionally or not, end up damaging to scientific literacy for the average person who might not know the difference. It makes things confusing, especially because -fold is used to mean powers of 2 in some contexts and a reader could end up being misinformed if they came across such a headline on said topic in the future.