Due to the spread of more contagious variants of SARS-CoV-2 and other factors, the COVID-19 pandemic in many countries continues to record new highs. As of April 29, 2021, more than 149 million people worldwide have been infected with COVID-19, causing 3.15 million deaths. According to the prediction results of the Global Prediction System of COVID-19 Pandemic (GPCP), the COVID-19 would accelerate its spread in May, with the number of infections expected to reach about 32.5752 million in single month, of which India might account for half of all confirmed cases worldwide.
The world’s top 10 countries for the projected number of new confirmed cases in May have been presented in Figure 1, indicating that India would see a super large-scale outbreak and remain the worst-hit-area. The pandemic in Brazil would continue to worsen; and the number of new cases in the US would continue to slowly decline, but its number of daily new cases would still reach 10,000. The COVID-19 pandemic in Spain, France, Turkey, Argentina, Germany, Poland, Italy and other countries would further spread, causing the global epidemic prevention efforts increasingly challenging.
Fig. 1 World's top 10 countries for the projected new confirmed cases in May
In May, the global pandemic situation would still be grim. Specifically, in the Americas, the number of daily new cases of Brazil would present a slow uptrend, its average would be more than 80,000, pushing the number of cumulative confirmed cases in May exceeding 2.5 million. The US would see a slow downtrend of the daily new cases, with an average of about 42,000 people, bringing the cumulative number of confirmed cases in May to more than 1.3 million. The daily new cases in Argentina would be on an uptrend with an average of about 20,000, bringing the cumulative number of confirmed cases in May to more than 0.658 million. Colombia might see an uptrend of the daily new cases, with an average of around 10,000 people, pushing the cumulative number of confirmed cases in May to more than 0.3212 million.
In Europe, Spain would see an uptrend of the daily new cases, with an average of around 37,000 people, pushing the cumulative number of confirmed cases in May to more than 1.15 million. The situation in France would continue to worsen, with an average of daily new cases reaching 31,000, pushing the cumulative number of confirmed cases in May to more than 0.977 million. Germany would see an uptrend of the daily new cases, with an average of more than 17,000 people, recording the number of cumulative confirmed cases in May exceeding 0.53 million. Poland would experience an average of daily growth of about 15,000, bringing the cumulative number of confirmed cases in May to more than 0.456 million. Italy would see an average of daily growth of about 13,000, bringing the cumulative number of confirmed cases in May to more than 0.409 million.
In Asia, India would face a sharp growth trend, and the maximum of the daily new cases in May might reach 0.67 million people, with an average exceeding 0.569 million, recording the number of cumulative confirmed cases in May exceeding 17.64 million. Turkey would also see an uptrend of the daily new cases, with an average of about 26,800 cases and a maximum of about 31,700, recording the number of cumulative confirmed cases in May exceeding 0.83 million. The Philippines would have an uptrend of the daily new cases, with an average of about 7,751 cases, pushing the number of cumulative confirmed cases in May exceeding 0.24 million.
In addition, Canada, Iran, Chile, Hungary, Mexico, Serbia, Ireland, Russia, Pakistan, etc. would all have an average of daily new cases of more than 1,000 in May, 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 and seasonal prediction sections of the GPCP (http://covid-19.lzu.edu.cn/).
Team of Pandemic Prediction, Collaborative Innovation Center for Western Ecological Safety, Lanzhou University
April 29, 2021
