Filenews 7 May 2021
The coronavirus pandemic slowed this week in all regions of the world except Asia due to the outbreak in India and its neighbouring countries: the most important developments of the week follow, according to data from the French Agency.
Although an important indicator, the number of cases diagnosed reflects only a fraction of the actual number of infections and comparisons between countries should be taken into account with caution, as diagnostic policies vary from country to country.
Record daily cases
With 789,500 infections recorded daily in the world this week, the index fell slightly (-4% compared with a week earlier) for the first time in 10 weeks, according to a count by the French Agency yesterday.
The index has been steadily increasing since 20 February, following an unprecedented decrease of more than a month at the beginning of the year, when infections had halved, to around 355,000 cases a day.
In recent weeks, global acceleration has been mainly due to the outbreak in India. Excluding India, the rest of the world has actually been slowing the pandemic since mid-April.
New acceleration in Asia
Only Asia is aware of an acceleration in infections (+10%), due to India, which this week recorded almost half of global cases: 385,800 a day.
The pandemic is slowing considerably in all other regions: -25% in Africa, -24% in Europe, -13% in the Middle East, -12% in the USA/Canada, -12% in Oceania and -8% in Latin America/Caribbean.
The most significant increases
Nepal remains, for the third week in a row, the country where the epidemic is accelerating most (+101%, 7,300 new cases a day) among countries that have recorded at least 1,000 infections a day over the past week.
They are followed by Sri Lanka (+82%, 1,800), South Africa (+32%, 1,500), Bahrain (+15%, 1,200) and Malaysia (+14%, 3,300).
The week's two major accelerations concern two countries – Nepal and Sri Lanka – neighbouring India, which has been hit for weeks by a new strain considered more infectious.
The most significant reductions
The most significant decrease of the week is seen in Ethiopia (-48%, 600 new cases per day), ahead of Ukraine (-46%, 5,400), Bulgaria (-44%, 800), Bangladesh (-42%, 1,700) and Poland (-39%, 4,700).
Most infections
After India (385,800 daily cases, +10%), the countries that recorded the highest number of new infections this week are Brazil (59,000, -2%), the USA (45,600, -13%), Turkey (27,000, -34%) and the United States (45,600, -13%). Argentina (20,100, -11%).
As a percentage of the population, the two countries that have recorded the most cases this week are by far the Seychelles (1,223 to 100,000 inhabitants) and the Maldives (668).
These two archipelagos are among the most advanced countries in the world in terms of vaccination. Mainly, the Seychelles, where over 60% of the population is fully vaccinated. The two countries vaccinate almost equally with doses of Sinopharm and AstraZeneca/Oxford.
Deaths
India tops the fatal ranking of daily deaths (3,619 per day this week), ahead of Brazil (2,252), the US (710), Colombia (455) and Argentina (394).
Globally, daily deaths have decreased sharply this week (12,860 a day, -3%).
Source: RES-BE
