Weekly epidemiological update on COVID-19 - 6 January 2022

During the week 27 December 2021 to 2 January 2022, following a gradual increase since October, the global number of new cases increased sharply by 71% as compared to the previous week, while the number of new deaths decreased by 10%. This corresponds to just under 9.5 million new cases and over 41 000 new deaths reported during the last week. As of 2 January, a total of nearly 289 million cases and just over 5.4 million deaths have been reported globally.

All regions reported an increase in the incidence of weekly cases, with the Region of the Americas reporting the largest increase (100%), followed by the South-East Asia Region (78%) and the European Region (65%). The African Region reported a weekly increase in the number of new deaths (22%), while all the other regions reported a decrease as compared to the previous week.