The decline in Covid infections and deaths reported around the world continues. In the 28 days from January 30th to February 26th, globally, around 4.8 million infections and over 39 thousand deaths were recorded, equal to -76% and -66% respectively, compared to the previous 28 days. As of February 26, since the beginning of the pandemic there are over 758 million confirmed cases and over 6.8 million deaths. This is what emerges from the bulletin released by the World Health Organization. Compared to the reports of the past few weeks, it seems to be slowing down the decline in infections in Europewith a -7% against the sustained double-digit declines of the latest bulletins.
WHO reiterates that “current trends are underreporting of the true number of infections and reinfections” from Sars-CoV-2, “as prevalence surveys show. This is in part due to reduced testing and reporting delays in many Countries. The data presented may be incomplete and therefore should be interpreted with caution”, warns the Geneva agency which, in monitoring changes in epidemiological trends, now makes comparisons on 28-day intervals because “this helps take into account delays reporting, to smooth out weekly fluctuations in the number of infections and to provide a clearer picture of where the pandemic is accelerating or decelerating”.
At the regional level, in the last 28 days new cases have decreased in all 6 WHO regions (-89% Western Pacific, -53% Africa, -38% Americas, -36% Southeast Asia, -22% Eastern Mediterranean and -7% Europe); new deaths fell in 5 regions (-84% Western Pacific, -66% Africa, -57% Southeast Asia, -44% Europe and -22% Americas), while they increased by 18% in the Eastern Mediterranean. For Italy, again in the last 28 days, WHO reports a 40% drop in the number of deaths.
Over the past 28 days, the highest number of new Covid cases were reported in the United States (1,085,170, -29%), Japan (752,935, -77%), China (537,561, -95%), Germany (376,450, + 6%) and the Republic of Korea (349,277, -66%), while for deaths reported in the lead are the USA (12,111, -17%), China (5,915, -91%), Japan (4,818, -52%), Brazil (2,186, -24%) and the United Kingdom (2,027, -48%).
For the European region, the WHO report indicates over 1.4 million infections and 9,784 deaths in the last 28 days. Fourteen countries recorded increases of 20% or more in new cases, with the highest increases reported by Moldova (+314%), Poland (+281%) and Armenia (+170%). The highest number of new infections was reported by Germany (376,450, 452.6/100,000, +6%), the Russian Federation (314,716, 215.7/100,000, +133%) and Austria (124,999, 1,404.3/ 100,000, +86%), while the United Kingdom (2,027, 3/100,000, -48%), Italy (1,190, 2/100,000, -40%) and the Russian Federation (1,051, less than 1 /100 thousand, -14%).