Weekly epidemiological update on COVID-19 - 17 August 2021

Overview

The global number of new cases has been increasing for the last 2 months with over 4.4 million cases reported in the past week (9 – 15 August 2021), bringing the cumulative number of globally to cases to over 206 million. This increasing trend is largely attributed to increases in the Western Pacific Region and the Region of the Americas which reported 14% and 8% increases respectively as compared to the previous week. Overall, the number of deaths reported remained similar with over 66 000 deaths this week, as compared to the previous week. While the African Region reported the largest percentage decrease in case and death incidence, 23% and 18% respectively, data from the weekend is incomplete which might lead to an overestimation of the percentage change. The Western Pacific and the Eastern Mediterranean Regions reported the highest proportionate increases in death incidence of 23% and 15% respectively over the last seven days.

In this edition, a special focus updates are provided on:

• SARS-CoV-2 Variants of Concern (VOCs) Alpha, Beta, Gamma and Delta which includes updates on the geographic distribution of VOCs.
• COVID-19 in Prisons