Weekly COVID-19 Epidemiological Update: Issue 7 (22 March 2022)

Abstract

[Executive Summary]. Since the onset of the pandemic in 2020 and up to 22 March 2022, a cumulative total of over 469 million COVID-19 cases including more than 6 million deaths were reported from all six WHO regions. Overall, trends during epidemiological week (EW) 11 (March 13 to 19) continued increasing in terms of cases (more than 12.3 million cases globally or a 6.5% increase), mainly produced by the Western Pacific Region (WPRO). Nonetheless, deaths continued to decline globally (over 32 thousand in EW11 or a 24.9% decline). Figure 1. Within the WHO regions, WPRO reported more than 6 million cases in EW11, representing a 20.6% increase in comparison to EW10, and nearly 7 thousand deaths (or a 5.4% increase). In addition to WPRO, the Europe region (EURO) reported a slight increase (0.4%) in terms of cases between EW10 and EW11. The rest of WHO regions saw declines both in terms of cases (range: -17.4% in the Americas region (PAHO) to -41.4% in Eastern Mediterranean region (EMRO)) and in terms of deaths (range: -17.6% in EURO to -45.8% in PAHO). In the Region of the Americas, over 149.7 million cases of COVID-19 including over 2.67 million deaths were reported as of March 22, 2022. COVID-19 cases in the region continued to decline for the nineth consecutive week with more 733 thousand new cases reported in EW 11 – a decline of 17.4% compared to EW10. Similarly, the downward trajectory of weekly deaths continued for a sixth consecutive week with 8.297 new deaths reported during EW11 – a 45.8% decline. Map 1 (in page 6) shows COVID-19 case incidence and mortality rates in the Americas during EW 10 and 11, 2022.