Covid-19 in 2022: What the pandemic could look like for each region

Despite greater global availability of vaccines, scientists fear the fight is far from over

Health workers take a break from administering Covid-19 swab tests in Colombo, Sri Lanka. The country reported its first case of heavily mutated coronavirus Omicron variant of concern on December 3 in a citizen returning from South Africa. EPA

A health worker holds a vial of the Moderna Covid-19 vaccine at a pop-up in Manhattan, New York City. Reuters

Britain's Prime Minister Boris Johnson, wearing a protective face covering to combat the spread of the coronavirus, leaves No 10 Downing Street in central London to take part in the weekly session of Prime Minister Questions at Parliament. He is facing a backlash from some of his own MPs over new coronavirus restrictions as he contends with a slump in support and questions about his future. AFP

A dose of Covid-19 vaccine is given to a school pupil during a vaccination drive for children aged 6 to 11, in West Java, Indonesia. The country has reported that more than 4.2 million coronavirus infections with cases among people aged 18 and under making up 13 per cent of Indonesia’s total cases. EPA

Medical workers take nasal samples from people at a makeshift coronavirus testing site in Seoul, South Korea. AP

Brentford’s Premier League clash with Manchester United has this week been postponed due to a Covid-19 outbreak at the Old Trafford club. By Tuesday morning, the English Premier League had been hit by 42 positive tests. Photo: Manchester United FC

Visitors wear masks at a shopping centre in Beijing. Chinese state media said the first case of the Omicron variant had been detected in the country's mainland in Tianjin city, about 135km east of the capital. AP

People shop for Christmas in Sydney. Covid-19 restrictions will ease further across the state of New South Wales, including rules for unvaccinated people. Getty Images

The body of a person who died from Covid-19) is pushed to be cremated by the Farmington Funeral Home in New Mexico, US. Reuters

People take a ski lift wearing a mandatory mask as a preventive measure against Covid-19, in the Alpe d’Huez ski resort, France. AFP

Nathan Blackwater holds his daughter, Nylah, as she receives her first dose of the Pfizer-BioNTech coronavirus vaccine in Shiprock, New Mexico. Reuters

Medical workers in protective suits collect swabs from residents at a Covid-19 testing site in Ningbo, China. Reuters

Covid-19 patient Larry Goff, 61, in an isolation room at San Juan Regional Medical Centre in Farmington, New Mexico. Reuters

A man has a nose swab sample collected at a mobile Covid-19 testing unit in Manhattan, New York. Reuters

Daniel and Paris Hokin wait for their Covid-19 test results with their children at a check point in Coolangatta, on Australia's Gold Coast, before entering Queensland. Getty

Skiers wait for a cable car in Obereggen, Italy. The Italian government tightened health restrictions from December 6 to combat the rise in Covid-19 cases. Getty

Protesters take part in a demonstration against Covid-19 health restrictions in Austria, which became the first EU country to say it would make vaccinations mandatory. AFP

Pilgrims walk towards Our Lady of Guadalupe Basilica in Mexico City on Sunday after the easing of Covid-19 restrictions. AP

Ukrainians take part in a protest against Covid-19 restrictions for unvaccinated people in Kiev. EPA

Medical workers protest against the Belgian government's Covid-19 restrictions in Brussels. Reuters

Travellers wear protective suits at Soekarno-Hatta International Airport, near Jakarta. Indonesia has banned travellers from eight African countries in an effort to curb the spread of the Omicron coronavirus variant. Reuters

A medic prepares a Covid-19 vaccine dose during an inoculation campaign in the Palestinian city of Rafah. AFP

An electronic stock market board in Tokyo, Japan. Stocks advanced in Asia after a broad rally on Wall Street amid hopes that the Omicron strain will not pose a big economic threat. AP

A woman undergoes a PCR test at a Covid-19 testing centre in Seoul, South Korea. AFP

A woman attending a religious festival in Managua, Nicaragua, has her hands sprayed with sanitiser as a precaution against Covid-19. EPA

A restaurant worker in Warsaw checks a customer's proof of vaccination. From March, Poland's health workers, teachers, police and other uniformed service workers will need to be vaccinated against Covid-19. AP

Activists lit about 12,000 candles in Bern, Switzerland, in memory of the people who have died from Covid-19 in the country. EPA

A pedestrian walks past a mobile Covid-19 vaccine clinic in Manhattan, New York. Reuters

A healthcare worker prepares to give a woman a Covid-19 vaccine dose in Lima, Peru. Reuters

A 'Mask Up For Christmas' sign in Manchester. The UK government is advising people to receive Covid-19 booster shots as it reintroduces safety measures. Getty

A man walks along the bank of the Danube Canal during the lockdown in Vienna. Graffiti on the wall reflects opposition to the Covid-19 vaccination campaign. AP

A trader on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange. Stocks rallied on Wall Street as investors hoped that the Omicron coronavirus variant will not pose a big economic threat. AP

A Christmas market in Berlin. Germany is dealing with a rising number of coronavirus infections. EPA

A lab worker handles positive Covid-19 samples to be sequenced in the virology laboratory of the APHP Henri Mondor Hospital in Creteil, on the outskirts of Paris. AFP

A health worker collects a swab sample of a passenger who arrived in Karnataka by train, following the detection of the Omicron strain in the Indian state. EPA

Officials disinfect the cabin of an Asiana Airlines plane at Incheon International Airport in South Korea amid mounting concerns about the Omicron variant. EPA

Signage for a vaccination site in a Manhattan subway station as the Omicron strain continues to spread in New York. Reuters

Prime Minister Boris Johnson at a press conference in Downing Street after ministers met to consider imposing new restrictions in response to rising cases and the spread of the Omicron variant. PA

A member of the Western Cape Metro Emergency Medical Services receives vaccines from an ambulance in Cape Town, South Africa. AFP

People queue for Covid-19 booster jabs outside a vaccination centre in London. UK government health experts are advising that all people aged over 18 should receive Covid-19 booster shots. EPA

Live updates: follow the latest news on Covid-19 variant Omicron

It has been two years since Covid-19 emerged in China. Since then, the world has faced upheaval of a kind that most people had never experienced before.

Travel bans, hospitals struggling to cope, boosters and mask-wearing – life has taken on myriad new elements, many of them unwelcome. But the effects of the virus have not been felt equally around the world.

Some regions have suffered higher death rates, in part because they have more elderly people, and levels of infection have varied widely. Although vaccine campaigns improved significantly in many developing nations in the second half of 2001 , and some countries are pressing ahead with boosters, coverage in Africa remains poor.

People have postulated that until 2023, it isn’t achievable, to vaccinate the world

Prof Beate Kampmann,
London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine

Looking ahead to next year, the hope is that supply shortages will ease now that manufacturing capacity is stronger and initial campaigns have been carried out.

“The bottom line is more vaccines need to reach more people, and we’re now in a much better position than we were a year ago because the vaccine supplies have significantly increased,” said Prof Beate Kampmann, director of the vaccine centre at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.

“Supplies appear to be less of an issue now, but it’s the distribution of the supplies that is not resolved.

“There might also be a shortage in adjusted product [to cope with new variants] and there will have to be continued advocacy and commitment for countries to donate.”

The emergence of the Omicron variant increases uncertainty as to what will happen next year.

“People have postulated that until 2023, it isn’t achievable to vaccinate the world,” Prof Kampmann said.

“If we’re having new variants kicked out and vaccines having to be tweaked, then I worry that this will set back the whole trajectory of progress.”

Africa

Africa is by far the least vaccinated continent, with only 18 doses administered per 100 people and 12 per cent of the population having received at least one dose of vaccine.

Africa has recorded 225,000 deaths from Covid-19, according to official figures. But this is likely to be an underestimate. Vaccine supplies from Covax, the global vaccine alliance, have fallen below expectations, but increased in the second half of this year.

The continent has been able to use existing infrastructure for delivering childhood vaccinations to administer Covid-19 vaccines.

Prof Kampmann said vaccine hesitancy has been a concern, however, partly because the continent already has a high burden from infectious disease, so Covid-19 is seen as “one other virus coming along”.

“I don’t think people are quite as aware of the threat to their personal health posed by Sars-CoV-2, and they therefore don’t see the need to be vaccinated,” she said.

Vaccine supply is expected to increase significantly next year as squeezes on production capacity brought about by the initial launch of campaigns in many parts of the world lessen.

Asia-Pacific

China, which has recorded fewer than 6,000 deaths among its 1.4 billion people, according to official figures, has controlled the pandemic through international travel restrictions and local lockdowns.

The population is heavily vaccinated (83 per cent are fully immunised), although with locally developed vaccines that may be less effective, especially against newer variants.

Some analysts think the world’s most populous nation will continue with its eradication or elimination strategy until the middle or even the end of 2022, easing restrictions only when more people have received newer vaccines.

Many countries in South-East Asia, such as Laos, Malaysia, Cambodia and Thailand, began administering vaccines in earnest only in the second half of this year, but now have significant coverage.

They will be aiming to achieve more consistent openings of their economies – and their tourism industries – in the year ahead.

India has administered about 1.32 billion vaccine doses but, because of its population size, only 38 per cent of citizens are fully vaccinated.

The world’s biggest vaccine producer is likely to complete its first round of inoculations in 2022, but keeping the pandemic under control – as the country has done following its devastating spike from April to June – may depend upon the behaviour of Omicron.

With their populations heavily vaccinated and with the Delta variant making a continued elimination strategy unrealistic, Australia and New Zealand are likely to open their borders to more people next year.

There have already been announcements about international students returning to Australia.

Europe

Europe is home to less than 10 per cent of the world’s population, but has suffered more than a quarter of known fatalities from Covid-19 – 1.54 million deaths – partly because of high infection rates and a large elderly population.

A study released in November said the continent could suffer a further 300,000 deaths if measures to control the virus were lifted.

Many European countries moved rapidly to vaccinate their populations, but high levels of vaccine scepticism in some places have placed an upper limit on coverage.

Recent severe outbreaks in nations including Belgium, Germany and the Netherlands have shown the pandemic’s potential to flare up again.

The UK, which was among the earliest to administer the first vaccines, and which has suffered a particularly high rate of infections and deaths, has had “very high, stable rates” in recent months, says Dr Andrew Freedman, an infectious disease specialist at Cardiff University in Wales.

High rates of vaccination and previous infection are thought by some analysts to be preventing further growth in the number of cases in the UK, although case rates remain high, averaging more than 40,000 a day.

Dr Freedman suggests more parts of Europe could see the same pattern next year.

“Once it peaks it may well do something similar to the UK,” he said, although this was conditional on new variants not changing the dynamic.

Recent modelling of how the Omicron variant might affect the UK suggested it could cause between 25,000 and 75,000 deaths by the end of April.

The Americas

After suffering a devastating toll of more than 600,000 deaths, Brazil has brought infection and death rates down significantly, as have some of its neighbours, including Argentina.

Latin American nations, including Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay and Ecuador, are now in the upper reaches of the global league tables of vaccination rates.

About 70 per cent of people in Latin America have now had at least one vaccine dose, putting the region behind only the US and Canada, where the figure is 73 per cent. The outlook for 2022 appears significantly improved over that of this year.

Cuba, which has well-developed healthcare and research institutions, stands out for producing its own vaccines. These have helped the country to fully immunise more than four out of every five people and give at least one dose to 90 per cent of its population.

“Cuba has three vaccines that seem to be working,” said Prof John Oxford, emeritus professor of virology at Queen Mary University of London.

While the US and Canada, together, represent the most vaccinated region of the world, the picture in the US is variable because of high rates of vaccine scepticism in some states.

For the past two months, the country has recorded between 5,000 and 11,000 deaths per week and a significant number could continue to occur next year, owing to inconsistent vaccination rates and new variants.

Middle East

The region has the country that was the fastest to get going with vaccination, Israel, and the country in which the highest proportion of its population has had at least one shot, the UAE.

Israel will offer lessons for the world next year in the effectiveness of boosters. The country has already administered them to about 46 per cent of its citizens, one of the highest figures in the world.

With high vaccination rates, Israel and the Gulf states will be able to keep economic disruption caused by the pandemic to a minimum in 2022, subject to the Omicron variant not forcing them to reinstate lockdowns.

While many of the Middle East’s nations are heavily vaccinated, when taken as a whole only 49 per cent of the population has had at least one dose. This is the second-lowest figure for any world region, ahead only of Africa.

War and poor healthcare infrastructure have slowed campaigns in Syria, Lebanon, Yemen and Iraq.

In Syria, only 5.2 per cent of the population has had at least one dose, while in Yemen the figure is only 1.9 per cent.

Next year, continued civil war could heavily complicate vaccination programmes in these two nations.