Global COVID-19 activity stayed high and largely even last week, as deaths rose, the World Health Organization (WHO) said today in its latest weekly update on the pandemic.In the United States, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) yesterday signed off on its advisory committee's recommendation for the Novavax COVID-19 vaccine primary series in those ages 18 years and older.Regions reflect evolving epi patternsAfter 5 weeks of increasing cases, the pace of new infections plateaued last week, the WHO said.
It received reports of nearly 6.3 million new cases. The five countries with the most cases were the United States, France, Italy, Germany, and Japan.Different regions of the world reflect different patterns, with cases on the rise in the Western Pacific, the Americas, and Southeast Asia.
Rising cases in the Western Pacific were led by jumps in Japan and South Korea. In the Americas, the rise was fueled by more modest increases in the United States and Brazil.
And in South and Southeast Asia, some of the countries experiencing rises are India, Thailand, and Indonesia.The WHO received reports of 11,000 deaths last week, with the global rise fueled by increases in three regions: Southeast Asia, the Eastern Mediterranean, and the Americas.Based on its monitoring of sequenced samples, the proportion of BA.5 Omicron subvariants continues to climb and makes up 53.6% of samples, as proportions of BA.2, BA.2.12.2, and BA.4 decline.