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WHO's Coronavirus disease (COVID-19) weekly Epidemiological situation Report

October 6, 2020

The number of new cases per week has remained stable at 2 million for the past three weeks, with the cumulative total of over 34.8 million cases. Over 1 million deaths have now been reported globally, of which the majority were reported in the Region of the Americas (55%), followed by Europe (23%). In the past week, the regions of the Americas, South-East Asia and Europe account for 91% of new cases. Five countries (namely India, the United States of America, Brazil, Argentina and France) reported 60 % of new global cases this past week, while Israel registered the highest incidence (3,717 new cases per 1 million population).
Globally, the highest percentage of cases have been reported in the 25-39 age group, with approximately 50% of cases in the 25-64 age group. However, the percentage of
deaths increases with age and approximately 75% of deaths are in those aged 65 years and above.

South East Asian Region
A gradual decline in case and death incidence in the South East Asian Region continued during the past week. Nevertheless, the Region contributes almost a third of new cases
reported global in the past week. At the same time, current weekly case incidence (304 per 1 million population) is markedly lower than that which is currently observed in the Americas and Europe.

India, reporting over 5,00 000 new cases per week since late August, again contributed the majority of incident cases in the Region (91%) and globally (27%) last week, bringing cumulative counts in the country to an excess of 6.5 million cases and 1,00 000 deaths (10% of the global total). Over several months, case numbers in India rose rapidly, with Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu and Uttar Pradesh reporting the highest numbers of cases. This increase occurred with a concurrent expansion in testing activity, which has since stabilized at 7� 8 million samples tested per week in the past five weeks. Weekly incidence of new cases is gradually easing, falling to 403 new cases per 1 million population (556 841 cases) this past week, after peaking three weeks ago, while test positivity rates fell marginally to 7.1 %.

Indonesia is currently the second most affected country in the Region, nearing 3,00 000 cases to date, including over 28,000 new cases in the past week. Almost 60 % of cases to date have been reported from the island of Java, which includes the capital Jakarta. Suspected case numbers have risen sharply in recent weeks; however, testing capacity has thus far been unable to meet demand, with approximately 23 % people tested among some 1,32,000 suspected cases reported on 30 September. Among four provinces that achieved a benchmark of 1 person tested/1000 population/week during September, weekly test positivity rates ranged markedly from less than 5 % to over 40 %, highlighting the heterogeneity in both surveillance capacity and COVID-19 activities across the island.