COVID-19 cases continue to rise for second consecutive week

Geneva: After a consistent decrease since the end of January 2022, the number of new weekly cases rose for a second consecutive week, with a 7% increase reported during the week of 14 through 20 March 2022, as compared to the previous week. The number of new deaths has continued a decreasing trend (-23% as compared to the previous week).

The highest number of new weekly cases were reported from South Korea (2 817 214 new cases; +34%), Viet Nam (1 888 694 new cases; +13%), Germany (1 538 666 new cases; +14%), France (582 344 new cases; +39%), and Australia (513 388 new cases; +161%).

The highest number of new weekly deaths were reported from the Russian Federation (3 681 new deaths; – 19%), the United States of America (3 612 new deaths; -58%), Brazil (2 242 new deaths; -32%), South Korea (2 033 new deaths; +41%), and China (1 921 new deaths; -2%).

At the regional level, the number of new weekly cases increased in the Western Pacific Region (+21%), remained stable in the European Region, and decreased in the Eastern Mediterranean (-41%), Africa (-33%), South-East Asia (-23%) and Americas (-17%) regions. On the other hand, the number of new weekly deaths increased in the Western Pacific Region (+5%), while decreasing in the other regions: Americas (-42%), Eastern Mediterranean (- 38%), Africa (-19%), Europe (-18%) and South-East Asia (-18%).

Across the six WHO regions, over 12 million cases and just under 33 000 deaths were reported. As of March 20, 2022, over 468 million confirmed cases and just over 6 million deaths have been reported globally.

By the first week of January 2022, Omicron accounted for 90% of submitted sequences; by week five, Omicron had largely replaced all other variants and now accounts for over 99.8% of submitted sequences globally. World Health Organization stated today that since the first reporting of the Omicron variant in November 2021, more than 2.4 million sequences have been deposited in GISAID, the global initiative on sharing all influenza data.

Omicron has a number of descendant lineages, including BA.1, BA.1.1, BA.2 and BA.3. In the last 30 days, BA.2 has become the predominant variant, with 251 645 sequences (85.96%) reported.

– global bihari bureau