Image Source: WHO

Watsupptoday:

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

November 4, 2020

In the past week, over 3.3 million new cases have been reported globally. As of 1 November, nearly 46 million cases and 1.2 million deaths have been reported globally. The further acceleration in the incidence of new cases was most notable in European Region, which reported half of global new cases (over 1.7 million cases - a 22% increase from the previous week. Moreover, the region also reported a substantial rise in the number of new deaths (a 46% increase compared with the previous week), with Europe and the Americas now each reporting over 17,000 new deaths in the last 7 days. The Americas and the Eastern-Mediterranean Regions have also seen relatively smaller rises in the number of reported cases. The South-East Asia Region has continued to report a decline in new cases and deaths, while case incidence continues to fluctuate around similar rates compared to recent weeks in the African and Western Pacific Regions.

Despite regional variations, the countries reporting the highest number of cases in the past week remain the same as in the previous four weeks: The United States of America, India and France. Since the start of the pandemic, nine countries have reported more than 1 million confirmed cases: the United States, India, Brazil, Russian Federation, France, Spain, Argentina, Colombia and the United Kingdom. Five have reported over 40,000 cumulative deaths: the United States, Brazil, India, Mexico and the United Kingdom.

Situation by WHO Region
South-East Asia Region

New cases and deaths in the South-East Asia Region this week have continued to decline. This is mainly due to a decline in reported cases in India, which contributes over 80% of all cases in the Region.
Additionally, large rates of decrease have been reported seen in Nepal, Indonesia and Bhutan. There have been over 3,80,000 new cases reported in the past 7 days, bringing the cumulative amount of cases to over 9.2 million. In contrast to other countries in the region, Sri Lanka reported a 53% increase in the past 7 days from 2,046 new cases to 3,142 new cases (147 cases per million population). This follows a cluster detected in a garment factory on 3 October. A curfew was imposed in Colombo District and other high-risk areas from 29 October to 2 November.

Additionally, active cases have been admitted to dedicated COVID-19 treatment hospitals, where 4,764 patients were admitted to 37 hospitals as of 28 October. The government is also upgrading around 60 divisional hospitals as isolation and treatment centers to add more bed capacity.

Indonesia has been showing a decreasing trend of new cases for the last 4 weeks. The country reported around 24,000 new cases (88.1 per 1 million population) in the last past 7 days and over 4,10,000 cumulative cases to date. WHO, in collaboration with the Ministry of Health and the National COVID-19 Task Force, has conducted a series of focus group discussions for a detailed review of challenges and possible solutions for enhancing contact tracing.