In order to maintain visibility on the global epidemiology of key morbidity and mortality indicators of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, WHO requests that countries bolster efforts to strengthen the reporting of weekly aggregate indicators of COVID-19 morbidity and mortality, as well as variant surveillance data, while reducing the reporting burden of other data that are no longer useful or available. The following data should be considered as the updated core list of surveillance indicators to be included in routine weekly reporting to WHO at the global level: number of confirmed cases; number of confirmed deaths; disaggregation of deaths by age; number of new admissions to hospital for COVID-19 treatment (confirmed); number of new admissions to ICU for COVID-19 treatment2 (confirmed); and number of persons tested (NAAT or Ag-RDT). In addition, are encouraged to enhance integrated respiratory disease surveillance and to monitor the relative co-circulation of influenza and SARS-CoV-2 viruses, and report these weekly through relevant platforms. Finally, in order to maintain vigilance for changes in circulating SARS-CoV-2 variants, samples and metadata obtained by testing confirmed cases should be prioritized for genomic sequencing and real-time sharing on public platforms.
