Globally, the numbers of weekly COVID-19 cases and deaths continued to decline. This is a trend that has been observed since August (Figure 1). Over 3.1 million new cases and just over 54 000 new deaths were reported during the week of 27 September to 3 October 2021. Cases this week decreased by 9% as compared to the previous week, while the number of deaths remained similar to that of the past week (Table 1). All regions reported a decline in the number of new cases this week apart from the European Region which reported a number similar to that of the previous week. The largest decrease in new weekly cases was reported from the African Region (43%), followed by the Eastern Mediterranean Region (21%), the South-East Asia Region (19%), the Region of the Americas (12%) and the Western Pacific (12%). The cumulative number of confirmed cases reported globally is now over 234 million and the cumulative number of deaths is just under 4.8 million.
The number of new weekly deaths reported showed a large (>10%) decline for all regions except for the Regions of the Americas and Europe, which both reported a similar number of weekly deaths as compared to previous week. The largest decline in weekly deaths was reported from the African Region, with a 25% decline as compared to the previous week.
The regions reporting the highest weekly case incidence rates per 100 000 population were the European Region (123.1 new cases per 100 000 population) and the Region of the Americas (109.5 new cases per 100 000 population), while the same two regions reported this highest weekly incidence in deaths per 100 000 population; the Region of the Americas (2.4 new cases per 100 000 population) and the European Region (1.6 new cases per 100 000 population).
The highest numbers of new cases were reported from the United States of America (760 571 new cases; similar to the number reported in the previous week), the United Kingdom (239 781 new cases; similar to the number reported in the previous week), Turkey (197 277 new cases; similar to the number reported in the previous week), the Russian Federation (165 623 new cases; 13% increase), and India (161 158 new cases; 21% decrease).
Globally, cases of the Alpha variant have been reported in 195 countries, territories or areas (hereafter countries; two new countries added since last week), while 145 countries (3 new country since last week) have reported cases of the Beta variant; and 99 countries have reported cases of the Gamma variant (4 new countries since last week, with 1 report of the Gamma variant from last week being discarded upon sequencing) . The Delta variant has been reported in 192 countries (seven new countries since last week: 2 under verification and 5 verified), across all six WHO regions as of 5 October.
Sources:
World Health Organisation (WHO), 05th October 2021
