London, Europe Brief News – COVID cases will be doubled across Europe in the next few months.
The increase in cases is not expected to cause a surge in deaths, the University of Washington’s Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) said.
It forecast that global daily deaths would average 2,748 people on Feb. 1, compared with around 1,660 currently. In February, deaths were more than 11,000 per day globally.
IHME estimates that daily infections in the United States will increase by a third to more than a million, driven by students back in schools and cold weather-related indoor gatherings.
A surge in Germany has peaked already, it said in its report on Oct. 24. IHME expects cases there will fall by more than a third to around 190,000 by February.
The report suggests that the recent COVID-19 surge in Germany might be due to Omicron subvariants BQ.1 or BQ.1.1. It will likely spread to other parts of Europe in the coming weeks.
A rapid increase in hospital admissions in Germany – the highest since the COVI-19 outbreak in 2020 – remains an area of concern, it said.
IHME’s analysis also found that the new Omicron subvariant XBB, which is currently driving a surge in hospitalizations in Singapore, is more transmissible but less severe.
