Summary
This is the briefing report. Summary, at a global level, the pandemic is contracting, however, that is just an average which eclipses significant SARS-CoV-2 outbreaks for individual countries. The pandemic has shifted from Latin America, East Asia, South Asia to Europe and Central Asia. Also, the Caribbean is experiencing explosive growth driven primarily by a combination of Delta and dearth of Vaccinations. The Caribbean is experiencing is largest outbreak since the pandemic began which is a much different pattern from Latin America, North America and Western Europe. This report includes two case studies of the Dominican Republic and the Philippines.
The Dominican Republic is inching closer and closer to an outbreak on October 20, 2021; thus, likely Haiti is worse. Due to humanitarian crises and the recent assassination of its president, Haiti does not have a functional government providing COVID-19 testing and reporting out its data. To inform the outbreak in Haiti, we turn to the Dominican Republic which is also located on the island of Hispaniola along with Haiti. Yesterday the spike in new cases in the Dominican Republic was 7 cases per day per 100,000 with positive acceleration and jerk meaning the trendline will continue to climb. We see indicators of an outbreak dating back to Sept the 12th including positive acceleration in the rates of new COVID-19 cases and positive jerk which is a measure of this week’s acceleration minus last week. The DR is on the front upward slope of an epidemiological curve and headed into an outbreak. We are watching a preventable disaster with alarming growth for more than a month.
In contrast, the Philippines continues to decline since Sept 15. The daily new cases per 100,000 is sitting at about 7 cases per day per 100,000 population. The rates are very similar between the DR and Philippines; however, the Philippines is on the downside of the epidemiological curve where the speed of the pandemic decreases daily, that rate of decrease is increasing marked by negative acceleration and the jerk is slowing. The Philippines still is heading out of an outbreak after experiencing its worse spike ever since January of 2020. This is an example of two countries with similar rates of COVID-19 today but very different projected outcomes.
18 Oct 21 USAID Brief on the Pandemic V2
