Outbreak Brief 49: Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) Pandemic

Outbreak Update: Since the last brief (15 December 2020), 4,660,959 new confirmed coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) cases and 81,815 new deaths have been reported globally. To date, a total of 75,723,684 COVID-19 cases and 1,690,778 related deaths (case fatality rate (CFR): 2.2%) have been reported from 221 countries and territories. The distribution of cumulative cases (proportion of global cases) from the World Health Organization (WHO) reporting regions (excluding Africa) are as follows: Eastern Mediterranean Region 3,896,881 (5%), European Region 23,885,746 (32%), Region of the Americas 32,740,713 (43%), South-East Asia Region 11,646,321 (15%) and Western Pacific Region 1,014,279 (1%). Among the affected locations, the United States has reported more than one million new cases each week for the last six consecutive weeks. For the last seven days, Brazil and the United Kingdom (UK) reported over 200,000 new cases. Since the last brief, a new variant of the SARS-COV-2 virus has been reported from both the UK (501Y) and South Africa (501Y.V2). Preliminary analysis from South Africa and the UK suggests that these variants are significantly more transmissible than previously circulating variants. For more detailed information on cases and deaths being reported outside of Africa, refer to the WHO daily situation reports.