#16,610
Although global COVID cases remain at a level that far exceeds anything reported before Omicron emerged late in 2021, they are more than 50% off their peak reported in January 2022. That decrease, combined with the generally less severe illness from Omicron, has substantially eased the pandemic pressure across most of the world.
The notable exception is in the Western Pacific region (see chart below) which continues to see a sharp rise, both in cases and deaths.
Some excerpts from this week's WHO Weekly Epidemiological Update on COVID follow.
Data as of 27 February 2022
Globally, during the week of 21 through 27 February 2022, the number of new COVID-19 cases and deaths has continued to decline by 16% and 10% respectively, as compared to the previous week (Figure 1). Across the six WHO regions, over 10 million new cases and over 60 000 new deaths were reported (Table 1). As of 27 February 2022, over 433 million confirmed cases and over 5.9 million deaths have been reported globally.
At the regional level, while the Western Pacific Region reported an increase (+32%) in the number of new weekly cases, all other regions reported decreases: the Eastern Mediterranean Region (-34%), the Region of the Americas (-30%), the African Region (-25%), the European Region (-24%), and the South-East Asia Region (-16%).
The number of new weekly deaths increased in the Western Pacific (+22%) and the Eastern Mediterranean (+4%) Regions, while decreases were reported by the African Region (-59%), South-East Asia Region (-18%), Europe Region (-13%), and the Region of the Americas (-8%).
The highest numbers of new cases were reported from Germany (1 119 632 new cases; -8%), the Republic of Korea (1 032 008 new cases; +69%), the Russian Federation (920 697 new cases; -26%), Turkey (541 259 new cases; -10%), and Brazil (519 785 new cases; -33%).
The highest number of new deaths were reported from the United States of America (13 663 new deaths; 0%), the Russian Federation (5427 new deaths; +3%), Brazil (4361 new deaths; -26%), Mexico (2027 new deaths; +39%), and Turkey (1838 new deaths; -4%)
This week's Epi report is much briefer at 14 pages than we've seen in recent weeks (Last week's was 26 pages), with only the following brief statement on VOCs (Variants of Concern).
Special Focus: Update on SARS-CoV-2 variants of interest and variants of concern
WHO, in collaboration with national authorities, institutions and researchers, routinely assesses if variants of SARS-CoV-2 alter transmission or disease characteristics, or impact effectiveness of vaccines, therapeutics, diagnostics or public health and social measures (PHSM) applied to control disease spread. Potential variants of concern (VOCs), variants of interest (VOIs) or variants under monitoring (VUMs) are regularly assessed based on the risk posed to global public health.
As evidence becomes available, classifications of variants will be revised to reflect the continuous evolution of circulating variants and their changing epidemiology. Criteria for variant classification, and the current lists of VOCs, VOIs and VUMs, are available on the WHO Tracking SARS-CoV-2 variants website. National authorities may choose to designate other variants of local interest/concern and are encouraged to investigate and report on the impacts of these variants.
Geographic spread and prevalence of VOCs
The current global epidemiology of SARS-CoV-2 is characterized by the global dominance of the Omicron variant. Delta remains the only other named variant with significant reported circulation. Among the 488 463 sequences uploaded to GISAID with specimens collected in the last 30 days i , 486 182 (99.5%) were Omicron, 1 601 (0.3%) were Delta, and six (<0.1%) were Alpha.
In the last 30 days, no Beta, Gamma, Lambda, Mu or any other non-VOC/VOI sequences were reported to GISAID. To note, global VOCs distribution should be interpreted with due consideration of surveillance limitations, including differences in sequencing capacities and sampling strategies between countries, as well as delays in reporting.
Just over a week ago the WHO did issue the following WHO Statement On Omicron BA.2 Sublineage, which concluded `. . . there was no reported difference in severity between BA.2 and BA.1.', but continued to say:
WHO will continue to closely monitor the BA.2 lineage as part of Omicron and requests countries to continue to be vigilant, to monitor and report sequences, as well as to conduct independent and comparative analyses of the different Omicron sublineages.
