Situation Repot of COVID-19 in the ASEAN Region – 06 May 2021

Global Update

• Worldwide, there have been over 516 million cases and over 6 million deaths attributed to COVID-19.

• According to the World Health Organization’s (WHO) Weekly Epidemiological Update, globally, the number of new COVID-19 cases and deaths has continued to decline since the end of March 2022. During the week of 25 April through 1 May 2022, over 3.8 million cases and over 15,000 deaths were reported, decreases of 17% and 3% respectively, as compared to the previous week. However, not all the Regions reported decreasing trends: the number of new weekly cases increased in the African Region (+31%) and in the Region of the Americas (+13%), while the number of new weekly deaths increased in the South-East Asia Region (+69%) largely due to a delay in the reporting of deaths from India. As of 1 May 2022, over 500 million confirmed cases and over six million deaths have been reported globally. These trends should be interpreted with caution as several countries have been progressively changing their COVID-19 testing strategies, resulting in lower overall numbers of tests performed and consequently lower numbers of cases detected. At the country level, the highest number of new weekly cases were reported from Germany (558,958 new cases; - 24%), Italy (384,825 new cases; -8%), France (382,208 new cases; -30%), the Republic of Korea (380,455 new cases; - 35%), and the United States of America (372,167 new cases; +27%). The highest number of new weekly deaths were reported from the United States of America (2 199 new deaths; - 5%), India (1,650 new deaths; +273%), the Russian Federation (1,129 new deaths; -19%), France (900 new deaths; +2%), and Italy (898 new deaths; -11%). The Omicron variant of concern is the dominant variant circulating globally, accounting for nearly all sequences reported to GISAID. Since its designation as a VOC by WHO on 26 November 2021, Omicron has continued to evolve, leading to variants with slightly different genetic constellations of mutations. Each constellation may differ in the public health risk it poses, including the change in epidemiology and or the severity profile. The main features of Omicron sublineages are the high growth advantage over other variants, which is mainly driven by immune evasion. Omicron sublineages have led and are still leading to a high number of cases and, as a result, to a high number of hospitalizations and deaths. Three Omicron sublineages BA.4, BA.5 and BA.2.12.1 have acquired a few additional mutations that may impact their characteristics (BA.4 and BA.5 have the del69/70, L452R and F486V mutations; BA.2.12.1 has the L452Q and S704L mutations). Based on GISAID data and reports from WHO regional offices and countries, the number of cases and the number of countries reporting the detection of these three variants are rising. Limited evidence to date, does not indicate a rise in hospital admissions or other signs of increased severity. Preliminary data from South Africa using S gene target failure data (absent in BA.2, present in BA.4 and BA.5) indicate no difference in the risk of hospitalization for BA.4 and BA.5, as compared to BA.1; however, the short follow-up of BA.4 and BA.5 cases does not allow for conclusions on disease severity of these sublineages to be drawn at this stage. WHO continues to closely monitor the BA.4, BA.5, and BA.2.12.1 variants as part of Omicron VOC and provide further updates as more evidence on severity becomes available. WHO requests countries to continue to be vigilant, to monitor and report sequences, as well as to conduct independent and comparative analyses of the different emerging variants.

• World Health Organization (WHO) said on May 4 (Wednesday)that two sub-variants of Omicron are increasing the number of COVID-19 cases in South Africa, thereby once again emphasizing the importance of testing to monitor the spread and variation of the SARS-CoV2 virus. Sharing with the press, WHO Director-General said that South African scientists have shown that the cause of the recent increase in the number of new COVID-19 cases in South Africa is the spread BA.4 and BA.5. These are two of the 5 sublineage of Omicron that have been identified by the scientific community so far. Since being detected in South Africa at the end of November 2021, until now, Omicron has become the dominant infection variant globally, in which the " stealth Omicron " BA.2 sub-lineage causes the majority of new infections due to its faster infectious nature. According to the WHO, it is too early to determine whether these two sub-variants can make the COVID-19 epidemic more severe than other sub-variants of Omicron. However, WHO emphasized that early data shows that vaccination against COVID-19 is still an effective way to protect people from the risk of death and severe disease when infected. Despite an outbreak of the coronavirus caused by two new Omicron sublineage, South Africa has now put an end to school children wearing masks starting May 5 (Thursday). The health ministry announced that regulations requiring all students to wear masks in class expired at midnight ad were not renewed. However, adults are still required to wear masks in public indoor locations, and there are still limits on the number of people for gatherings