Risk assessment of global COVID-19 pandemic in January 2021

  Objective  To assess the global COVID-19 pandemic in January 2021 and the risk of imported cases to China.

  Methods  According to the daily incidence data of COVID-19 published by Johns Hopkins University, combined with the policy stringency index published by the University of Oxford, an epidemiological description analysis was conducted for the comprehensive and timely assessment of the global pandemic risk in terms of general overview, comprehensive assessment of the pandemic trends in WHO regions and key countries, as well as comprehensive analysis of the pandemic and prevention and control policies in 14 neighboring countries of China. The assessment results for each country were expressed as ‘countries with global concern’, ‘countries with general concern in each WHO region’ and ‘neighboring countries with special concern’.

  Results  Compared with December, 2020, the number of confirmed COVID-19 cases decreased by 3.39% and deaths increased by 15.80% in the world in January 2021. The Europe region had the highest numbers of newly confirmed cases and deaths, while the Africa region had a 123.30% of death increase, indicating close attention needs to be paid to these two regions. Globally, there were trends that it took much less time for a 10 million case increase and less time for a 500 000 death increase. The Europe region and the Americas region (north) still contributed most to the global daily case and death incidences. Russia was the country with special concern among the 14 land-bordering countries of China.

  Conclusion  The global COVID-19 pandemic is still serious. It is necessary to continuously monitor countries with global concern, adjust entry control policies timely, and establish a communication mechanism with relevant agencies for information sharing and timely warnings.