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COVID-19 Cases in the Gaza Strip - Monthly Epidemiological Bulletin February - March 2022

Attachments

• This report provides a comparison of COVID-19 infections in February 2022 and March 2022.

• After the spike in the number of COVID-19 infections in Gaza in February 2022, there was a significant decrease in the number of cases in March (Figure 1), from 40,528 in Feb. to 2,928 in March with positivity rate among tested persons decreasing from 38% to 17% (Table 1). However, the number of people coming for testing decreased by 83.8% between February and March: from 106,343 to 1,7184, respectively.

• Due to the sharp decrease in the number of new COVID-19 cases in March, MoH decided to scale back the enforced COVID-19 related emergency measures.

• The decline in number of positive cases occured across the 5 all five governorates of the Gaza Strip, across all age groups, and among both males and females (Figure 2).

• Likewise, in March, lower number of health care workers got infected compared to February, 133 vs. 1,551, respectively (Figure 3).

• While there were 112 critical and severe COVID-19 cases hospitalized in Gaza in February, only 2 patients were hospitalized in March.

• As a result, there was a decrease in the number of COVID-19 deaths between February and March; from 148 (96 M and 52F) to 62 (40 M and 22 F), respectively (Figure2)