Coronavirus Disease (COVID-19): Weekly Epidemiological Update (21 September 2021)
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Edition 58, published 21 September 2021
Overview
The numbers of weekly COVID-19 cases and deaths globally continued to decline this week, with over 3.6 million cases and just under 60 000 deaths reported between 13-19 September. This brings the cumulative numbers of confirmed cases and deaths globally to nearly 228 million and over 4.6 million respectively. While the Region of the Americas as well as the Eastern Mediterranean, South-East Asia and Western Pacific regions reported a decrease in weekly case incidence, the African and European regions reported a similar number of deaths as compared to the previous week. Similarly, COVID-19 weekly mortality decreased in the African, Eastern Mediterranean and South-East Asian regions over the past week, with the South-East Asia Region reporting the largest percentage decrease (27%). In contrast, the Western Pacific Region reported an increase (7%) in the number of deaths while the Region of the Americas and the European Region reported a similar number of deaths as compared to the previous week.
In this edition, we provide updates on the impacts of the phenotypic characteristics (transmissibility, disease severity, risk of reinfection, and impacts on diagnostics and vaccine performance) of SARS-CoV-2 Variants of Concern (VOCs), the geographic distribution of VOCs as well as changes to VOI classifications.