PAHO Weekly COVID-19 Epidemiological Update - 8 March 2022

Since the onset of the pandemic in 2020 and up to 8 March 2022, a cumulative total of over 446 million COVID-19 cases including 6 million deaths were reported from all six WHO regions. Overall trends continued to decline worldwide during epidemiological week (EW) 9 (27 February – 5 March) when approximately 10.3 million new cases including 50,761 deaths were reported– a decline of 5% and 11.6% respectively compared to EW 8 (20 – 26 February). Figure 1. While the Western Pacific Region (WPRO) continued to observe relative increases in weekly cases (46.4% increase) and deaths (29%), COVID-19 trends are either declining or stabilizing in all the other WHO regions.

In the Region of the Americas, approximately 148 million cases of COVID-19 including 2.6 million deaths were reported during the last two years of the pandemic (February 2020 – February 2022). Despite making up only 13% of the world’s population, the region of the Americas contributed 44% of the total global deaths and 34% of the cases.

COVID-19 cases in the region continued to decline for a seventh consecutive week with more 1.1 million new cases reported in EW 9 – a decline of 26.1% compared to EW 8. Similarly, the downward trajectory of weekly deaths continued for a fourth consecutive week with nearly 18,000 new deaths reported during EW 9 – a 35.5% decline. Trends for COVID-19 hospitalizations and/or ICU admissions are also declining across the region and are now at or near pre-Omicron severity levels in many countries and territories.