The new cases worldwide would rise above a mind-numbing number because of the rapider spread of the COVID-19 caused by the temperature dropping and accompanying mass gathering. At present, the number of cumulative confirmed cases has exceeded 33.55 million worldwide. In some countries that had effectively controlled the disease, new confirmed cases have repeatedly reached new records and have fallen into the second wave of the epidemic. Meanwhile, the cumulative number of infections in India is on track to top 6 million, while the cumulative death toll in the United States has surpassed 0.2 million. Prediction results from the Global Prediction of COVID-19 Pandemic (GPCP) indicate that an estimated 6.9 million people were infected worldwide in October.
The world’ s top 10 countries for the projected number of new confirmed cases in October have been presented in Figure 1, indicating that India, the US,and Brazil still rank as the top three; Russia, France, Spain and Iran would be confronting the dire turning point brought by the second epidemic wave, with the number of new cases picking up swiftly. A new storm of the disease seems imminent.
Fig. 1 World's top 10 countries for the projected number of new confirmed cases in October
In October, the number of daily new cases of India would be on a fluctuating downtrend, with an average of about 75,000 cases, pushing the number of cumulative confirmed cases in October exceeding 2.32 million. The US would see a slow downward of the daily growth, with an average of 34,000 new cases a day, bringing the cumulative number of confirmed cases in October to more than 1.05 million. Brazil would see a fluctuating downtrend on the daily new confirmed cases, with an average of about 21,000 cases, recording the number of cumulative confirmed cases in October exceeding 0.66 million.
In recent days, the number of new confirmed COVID-19 cases per week in some European countries has surpassed the peak of the epidemic in March this year, leaving the situation extremely serious. In October, the number of daily new cases of Russia would be on a fluctuating uptrend, with an average of about 7600 cases and a maximum of about 9900, pushing the cumulative number of confirmed cases in October exceeding 0.24 million. The number of daily new cases in France would be on an uptrend, with an average of about 7000 cases and a maximum of about 9000, pushing the cumulative number of confirmed cases in October exceeding 0.22 million. The number of daily new cases in Spain would be on a slow uptrend, with an average of about 7000 cases and a maximum of about 7900, pushing the cumulative number of confirmed cases in October exceeding 0.21 million.
The trend of the number of daily new cases in Argentina would rise first then slowly fall in fluctuation, with an average of about 12,000 cases and a maximum of more than 13,000, recording the number of cumulative confirmed cases in October exceeding 0.38 million. Mexico would see a fluctuating downtrend on the daily new confirmed cases, with an average of about 4600 cases, recording the number of cumulative confirmed cases in October less than 0.15 million.
In the meanwhile, the number of daily new confirmed cases in Iraq would be on a slowly fluctuating downtrend, with a maximum of about 3900 cases, bringing the number of cumulative confirmed cases in October to more than 0.11 million. In Iran, the number of daily new confirmed cases would pick up first and then fall slowly in late October, with an average of about 3600 cases and a maximum of about 4000, bringing the number of cumulative confirmed cases in October to more than 0.11 million.
In addition, Indonesia, Canada, Peru, as well as Ukraine would see a slow rise in the number of new cases in October, which is not encouraging.
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
30 September, 2020
