Risk assessment of global COVID-19 pandemic in October 2022

  Objective   To assess the global epidemic of Coronavirus disease 2019（COVID-19） in October 2022 and the risk of importation.

  Methods   According to the daily COVID-19 data publicly released by Johns Hopkins University, combined with the policy stringency index published by the University of Oxford, an epidemiological description method was used to provide a comprehensive and timely assessment of the global epidemic risk through a general overview, a comprehensive assessment of the epidemic trends in WHO regions and key countries, as well as a comprehensive analysis of the epidemic and prevention and control policies in 14 neighboring countries. The assessment results for each country are expressed as “countries of global concern”, “countries of the general concern in each WHO sub-region” and “neighboring countries of special concern”.

  Results  Compared with September 2022, the global monthly new confirmed cases decreased by 13.5%, and the global monthly new deaths decreased by 12.6%. In October, the largest decrease in the number of new confirmed cases was recorded in the South-East Asia region (49.6%) and the American region (North) (42.7%). Besides the Europe region increased by 11.1%, other regions with a decrease of between 7.6% and 49.6%. Except for the Europe region (9.2%), the number of new deaths in the remaining regions decreased to varying degrees (between 13.9% and 62.5%). The biggest decline was in the eastern Mediterranean. Germany, France, Italy, Austria, the United Kingdom and Greece are countries of global concern, while South Africa is country of general concern in the African region.

  Conclusion  The global daily newly confirmed cases and deaths showed a downward trend in October, but the newly confirmed cases and deaths showed an upward trend in Europe region, which should be paid special attention to, timely communicate and adjusted measures.