● The re­gion re­ports the biggest rise in cas­es world­wide with the hol­i­day pe­ri­od set to dri­ve up num­bers, PA­HO warns, urg­ing coun­tries to con­tin­ue vac­ci­na­tion cam­paigns and im­ple­men­ta­tion of pub­lic health mea­sures ●

Wash­ing­ton D.C. (PA­HO) — Pan Amer­i­can Health Or­ga­ni­za­tion (PA­HO) da­ta show that COVID-19 cas­es in­creased 50% and deaths 11% in the re­gion of the Amer­i­c­as in the last week.  From De­cem­ber 19 to 25, more than half of coun­tries and ter­ri­to­ries in the re­gion re­port­ed an in­crease in cas­es of over 20%. The Omi­cron Vari­ant of Con­cern has been re­port­ed in 27 coun­tries and ter­ri­to­ries of the Amer­i­c­as.

The largest num­ber of new cas­es were re­port­ed in the Unit­ed States, fol­lowed by Cana­da and Ar­genti­na.

In Cen­tral Amer­i­ca, no in­crease in cas­es has been re­port­ed, ex­cept in Pana­ma and Be­lize, which saw cas­es rise in some of its re­gions. 

Bo­livia leads the in­crease in cas­es in the An­dean re­gion, with Colom­bia, Ecuador and Pe­ru al­so re­port­ing ris­ing num­bers.

In the South­ern Cone, Paraguay and Uruguay re­port­ed in­creas­es, while Brazil saw a de­crease in cas­es.

The num­ber of COVID-19 cas­es is al­so ris­ing in the Caribbean re­gion. Puer­to Ri­co, the Do­mini­can Re­pub­lic, and Ja­maica show sig­nif­i­cant in­creas­es com­pared to the pre­vi­ous week. Trinidad and To­ba­go, on the oth­er hand, re­port­ed de­clines.

PA­HO warns that the in­crease in SARS-CoV-2 virus cir­cu­la­tion in sev­er­al coun­tries, cou­pled with greater per­son­al con­tact due to the hol­i­day and va­ca­tion sea­son, may lead to a rise in cas­es, hos­pi­tal­iza­tions, and deaths in the com­ing weeks.

To re­duce COVID-19 trans­mis­sion, PA­HO con­tin­ues to rec­om­mend vac­ci­na­tion and pub­lic health mea­sures. These in­clude the use of tight-fit­ting masks, phys­i­cal dis­tanc­ing, ven­ti­la­tion of in­door spaces, avoid­ance of crowds, and hand hy­giene.

In ad­di­tion, PA­HO con­tin­ues to call on coun­tries to ac­cel­er­ate vac­ci­na­tion cov­er­age against COVID-19. As of De­cem­ber 28, more than 1.4 bil­lion dos­es have been ad­min­is­tered in the Amer­i­c­as, and 57% of the pop­u­la­tion in Latin Amer­i­ca and the Caribbean is ful­ly vac­ci­nat­ed.

The CO­V­AX Fa­cil­i­ty, through PA­HO's Re­volv­ing Fund, has so far de­liv­ered more than 76.2 mil­lion dos­es of vac­cine to 33 coun­tries in the Amer­i­c­as, many of them do­nat­ed by oth­er coun­tries.