Pandemic upsurge goes on, but deaths fall by a fifth

The Covid-19 pandemic continued its resurgence this week, in particular in Asia and Europe, but the number of related global deaths plunged by a fifth.

Here is the state of play based on AFP's database:

The average number of global daily cases increased over the week by 12 per cent to 1.8 million, after taking a new turn for the worse the week before, according to an AFP tally to Thursday.

Western European countries are seeing a rebound, including France, where the number of cases increased 35 per cent, while Italy and Britain were up 42 per cent each.

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In Asia, several countries beat their own records, including South Korea, Vietnam and Thailand.

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 pandemic's upturn is being driven by Oceania, where the number of new cases increased by 86 per cent compared to the previous week. They also increased 23 per cent in Asia and seven per cent in Europe.

However, the situation continues to greatly improve in Africa, where the numbers dropped 56 per cent.

In the Middle East, cases declined by 26 per cent, while the Latin America-Caribbean zone saw a fifth fewer cases and the United States-Canada zone registered a 12 per cent drop.

Laos recorded the biggest new case increase with 151 per cent over the week, followed by Ireland with 52 per cent more, South Korea 47 per cent, and Finland 44 per cent.

By head of population South Korea recorded the biggest number of new cases this week, with 5,288 per 100,000 people.

Austria followed with 3,484, New Zealand (2,706), Cyprus (2,613) and the Netherlands (2,504).

The number of Covid-linked deaths continued to decline, shrinking 20 per cent to an average of 5,401 a day.

The decline was reflected in all regions of the world.

Hong Kong reported by far the highest death rate in proportion to population with 26.49 per 100,000 inhabitants.

It was followed at a distance by Latvia with 4.61, Denmark 4.33, Slovakia 4.08 and Chile 3.76.

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