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COVID-19 Weekly Epidemiological situation Report: WHO

December 16, 2020

Global epidemiological situation

In the past week the number of new COVID-19 cases and deaths continued to rise with 70 million cumulative cases and 1.6 million deaths globally since the start of the pandemic. The Regions of the Americas and Europe continue to shoulder the burden of the pandemic, accounting for 85% of new cases and 86% of new deaths globally. However as new cases and new deaths continue to rise in Americas, in cases stabilized in Europe for the third week in a row, while deaths continued to decrease. The African and the Western Pacific
Regions have both shown renewed rises in November and December. This week the African Region reported a rise in new cases and new deaths of over 40% compared with the previous week. In the South East Asia Region, the number of new cases and deaths continued to decline following a peak in September.

Situation by WHO Region

South-East Asia Region
In the South East Asian region, new cases reported showed a 13% decline from the previous week and continued the general pattern of decreasing cases since early September. New deaths decreased by 12% in the past week, following a 3 week increase. Only three out of ten countries in the region (Sri Lanka,
Indonesia and Thailand) reported an increase in new cases this week.

While India has consistently reported the highest number of cases and deaths in the region, declining trends in both have been seen over the past month, with that trend continuing this week. The country reported decreases in both new cases and new deaths compared with the previous week. A recent study found that very few deaths were recorded in long term care facilities across the three western Indian states of Gujarat, Rajasthan and Maharashtra, states that are among some of the most affected by the pandemic. India has conducted over 153 million tests since the start of the pandemic with 4.9 tests per 1000 population conducted in the previous week and a test positivity rate of around 3.2%.