According to the prediction results of the Global Prediction of COVID-19 Pandemic (GPCP), the global number of daily new cases would continue to decrease, with the cumulative number of confirmed cases in March of about 10 million, which is likely to account for about 8.15% of the total confirmed cases worldwide. However, some countries would continue to be faced with the serious situation due to the frequent occurrence of variants of the SARS-CoV-2.
The world’s top 10 countries for the projected number of new confirmed cases in March have been presented in Figure 1, indicating that the COVID-19 pandemic would remain horrible in the Europe and America. The US would continue to be the worst-hit, and countries such as Brazil, Sweden, Russia, the UK and Indonesia would be affected by the variants of SARS-CoV-2, pushing the epidemic enter a new phase.
Fig. 1 World's top 10 countries for the projected new confirmed cases in March
Specifically, in March, some countries still would be severely affected. In the Americas, although the number of daily new cases of the US would see an downtrend, its average would be about 78,000, pushing the number of cumulative confirmed cases in March exceeding 2.4 million. Brazil would see a slow uptrend of the daily new cases and a maximum of more than 64,000 people, with an average of about 59,000 people, bringing the cumulative number of confirmed cases in March to more than 1.84 million. The daily new cases in Argentina would be about 7,818, bringing the cumulative number of confirmed cases in March to more than 0.242 million. Mexico would also see a slow downtrend of the daily new cases, with an average of more than 6,400 people, pushing the cumulative number of confirmed cases in March to about 0.198 million.
In the Europe, the number of cumulative confirmed cases in March in the UK would exceed 0.34 million,with an average of daily new cases about 11,000 people. Sweden would see an uptrend of the daily new cases, with an average of about 15,000 people, recording the number of cumulative confirmed cases in March exceeding 0.48 million. Russia would experience an downtrend of the daily growth, with an average of more than 11,000 new cases a day, bringing the cumulative number of confirmed cases in March to more than 0.36 million. The daily new cases in Czechia would be on a slow downtrend, with an average of about 8,779 people, recording the number of cumulative confirmed cases in March exceeding 0.27 million.
In Asia, Indonesia would face a downtrend on the daily new cases, with an average of about 10,000 cases, recording the number of cumulative confirmed cases in March exceeding 0.317 million. Israel also would see an uptrend of the daily new cases, with an average of about 6,111 cases, recording the number of cumulative confirmed cases in March exceeding 0.189 million. India would have a slow uptrend of the daily new cases, with an average of about about 5756 cases, pushing the number of cumulative confirmed cases in March exceeding 0.178 million.
In addition, Spain, Jordan, Italy, France, Portugal, United Arab Emirates, Germany would all have an average of more than 1,000 new confirmed cases per day in March, which is not optimistic.
What is 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
February 28, 2021
