GLOBAL STABILIZATION TRENDS OF COVID-19 PANDEMIC

Background. The coronavirus COVID-19 pandemic is of great concern. A detailed scientific analysis of this pheno-menon is still to come, but now it is urgently needed to evaluate and compare the disease dynamics in order to im-prove the quarantine activities and the level of individual protection, to speed the rate of isolation of infected per-sons, etc. In mid-March 2020, the WHO reported a sharp exponential increase in the number of COVID-19 cases in the world. Therefore, the study of the dynamics of the pandemic continues to attract the interest of researchers. Some works on comparing the epidemic dynamics in Italy, mainland China, Spain, Germany, France, Switzerland, USA, South Korea and some global trends have already been published. However, the receipt of new data requires constant analysis of the pandemic dynamics. Objective. In this paper we compare the pandemic dynamics in March and April, 2020 for different countries in Eu-rope, USA, regions and worldwide and try to estimate some global trends. Methods. We use official data about the accumulated numbers of confirmed COVID-19 cases in different countries and worldwide from WHO daily situation reports. In order to compare the epidemic dynamics in different countries, different time synchronization procedures and comparing with the exponential growth are used. Results. For Italy, Spain, Germany, Switzerland, France and USA, the epidemic dynamic in March, 2020 was com-pared with the situation in the Republic of Korea. The epidemic developments in Ukraine, Austria, their neighboring countries and global trends were analyzed. Conclusions. The situation with the COVID-19 pandemic is still threatening. But may be the dynamics in April, 2020 gives some hope for its stabilization at least in the countries with proper quarantine measures, fast detection and isolation of sick persons. The final sizes and durations of epidemic can be very different for different countries. Repeated outbreaks are possible and already occurring, but they will no longer be so severe, primarily because we have learned to better identify and isolate infected persons.