Global Covid cases surge 9% in a week

The Covid-19 pandemic took a turn for the worse this week, fuelled by fast deteriorating situations in western Europe and the United States.

Here is the global state of play based on an AFP database.

The number of new daily coronavirus cases increased sharply by nine per cent globally to 517,600, according to an AFP tally to Thursday.

There were however wide disparities between regions.

Infections rocketed by a third in the US alone and were up nine per cent in Europe.

But elsewhere cases fell, down by a tenth in the Middle East and Oceania, with infections falling by eight per cent in Latin America and the Caribbean and four per cent in Asia.

In Africa, case were down 32 per cent, although this figure was skewed by last week's correction in Botswana's figures.

Nine of the 10 countries where the situation worsened fastest were in Europe (of countries with populations more than a million).

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In Spain and Denmark cases were up by 54 per cent, and they were also up by slightly more than a half in Portugal.

Switzerland (up 45 per cent), the Netherlands (44 per cent) and France (43 per cent) were not much better.

The Czech Republic saw a 38 per cent rise, followed by Germany (36 per cent) and Austria (32 per cent), which is going back into partial lockdown on Monday.

This week's wave through western Europe -- which is largely quite well vaccinated -- follows sharp rises in less covered eastern Europe over the last few weeks.

However, the confirmed cases only reflect a fraction of the actual number of infections, with varying counting practices and levels of testing in different countries.

The US remained by far the country with the biggest number of new cases, with 97,500 per day, up a staggering 33 per cent. It was followed by Germany with 43,000 (up 36 per cent) and Britain.

On a per capita basis the country that recorded the most new cases this week was Slovenia with 1,107 cases per 100,000 habitants followed by Austria (981) and Croatia (887).

The US also had the highest number of deaths, with an average of 1,281 a day, ahead of Russia with 1,235 and Ukraine 664.

At a global level there was also an upturn in the number of daily deaths, which increased by four per cent to 7,439.

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Eastern European countries that were badly hit at the beginning of the northern hemisphere autumn recorded the biggest drop of the week.

In Romania cases fell by 45 per cent, they dropped 39 per cent in Armenia, 32 per cent in Bulgaria, 30 per cent in Estonia, 26 per cent in Serbia and Lithuania, 22 per cent in Moldova and 21 per cent in Latvia.

The Philippines recorded Asia's biggest drop with infections falling by a third.

Cuba again tops the global table for the fastest vaccination roll-out this week, jabbing 1.39 per cent of its population every day.

It was followed -- among countries with more than a million inhabitants -- by Vietnam, Austria, Thailand, Taiwan and the Philippines.

The United Arab Emirates is still the most vaccinated country on Earth, with 89 per cent of its population fully covered.

It is narrowly ahead of Portugal (87 per cent) and Singapore (86 per cent), Qatar (85), Chile (83) and Cambodia, Spain, Cuba and South Korea (79 per cent each).

Malaysia and Italy are on 77 per cent ahead of Canada, Japan, Denmark and Uruguay (76 per cent) and China, Ireland, France and Belgium on 75 per cent.