The dramatic surge of the epidemiological curves of the COVID-19 pandemic shows that the global pandemic has been still overwhelmingly raging, even though some countries are loosening control measures. Globally, the pandemic has significantly accelerated its spread, with the epidemic situation still severe in countries of North and South America, Europe, as well as India. Prediction results from the Global Prediction of COVID-19 Pandemic (GPCP) indicate that the number of cumulative confirmed cases in August would be about 8 million, with the number of daily new confirmed cases more than a thousand in at least 13 countries worldwide of the current outbreak, including the US, Brazil, Russia, South Africa and India.
As for North and South America, the epidemic would continue to sweep through August. The average number of daily new cases in the United States is about 67,000, peaking at the end of August with a maximum of more than 65,000 daily new cases and pushing the number of cumulative confirmed cases in August to more than 2 million. The number of daily new confirmed cases in Brazil is on an oscillatory fluctuation trend and would peak in middle August, with a maximum of more than 56,000 daily new cases, and the number of cumulative confirmed cases in August is expected to reach 1.45 million. The number of daily new confirmed cases in Mexico would peak at more than 8,000 in middle August, pushing the number of cumulative confirmed cases in August to more than 0.23 million. And Colombia would have the number of daily new confirmed cases peaked at 18,000 by the end of August, recording the cumulative confirmed cases more than 0.4 million.
On the other side of the Atlantic, the number of confirmed cases in some European countries and South Africa might start to decline. Russia would have a slowly declining trend in the number of daily new confirmed cases, and the number of cumulative confirmed cases in August would be less than 0.14 million. The number of daily new confirmed cases in Spain would be on an severely oscillatory fluctuation trend. The number of daily new confirmed cases in Italy would show a flat rising trend, peaking at the end of August with an average of more than 200 daily new cases, pushing the number of cumulative confirmed cases in August to about 10,000. The number of daily new confirmed cases in South Africa might be on a declining trend, bringing the number of cumulative confirmed cases in August to less than 0.16 million.
The epidemic situation in Asia outside China in August would be grim. The number of daily new confirmed cases would be on the fluctuating trend in India with an average of about 55,000, with about 1.69 million cumulative confirmed cases in August. Bangladesh would record a maximum of 3,500 daily new cases and more than 0.1 million cumulative confirmed cases in August, which shows a slowly rising trend.
What described above indicates the epidemic trend of countries with a larger increase in the number of daily new cases and a huge number of cumulative confirmed cases. For the rest of the countries and regions worldwide, please refer to the monthly prediction section of the GPCP (http://covid-19.lzu.edu.cn/).
Team of Pandemic Prediction, Collaborative Innovation Center for Western Ecological Safety, Lanzhou University
25 July, 2020
