After two months of declines, weekly COVID cases are rising again in the world

by time news

Global cases of COVID-19 increased by 4% last week after almost two months of declines, a phenomenon mainly due to the new waves of infections in European countries such as the United Kingdom, Russia, Turkey or Ukraine, the World Health Organization (WHO) reported on Wednesday.

The world did not register an increase in the number of coronavirus cases since the week between August 23 and 29.

But the WHO reported this Wednesday 2.9 million infections between October 18 and 24, of which more than half, 1.6 million, were registered in Europe, where the rise in positives compared to the previous week was 18%.

The increase in infections in Russia is one of the main drivers of the rise in cases in the world. Photo: REUTERS

The situation contrasts with the rest of the regions, where cases continue to decline: 2% in Africa, 17% in East Asia, 9% in America and 9% in South and Southeast Asia.

In parallel, deaths last week increased by 5% and rose to 49,000, with Europe being the region that registered the most deaths (21,000, 14% more).

In this indicator, South Asia also registered a weekly increase of 13%, although its absolute figures were much lower (3,300 deaths), while in America the number of deaths was almost the same as the previous week (18,000) and in the rest of the regions had decreases of more than 10% in deaths.

The United States continues to be the country that reports the most cases, with 512,000 last week, although their numbers continue to decline (12%).

In contrast, the other four countries with more cases last week, all European, have contagion curves on the rise: United Kingdom, with 330,000 cases (16% more), Russia (248,000, 15 more).

In the accumulated since the start of the pandemic, total infections amount to 243 million, while deaths exceed 4.9 million.

In terms of vaccinations, the world is already close to 7,000 million doses of anticovid vaccines administered.

At least the 49% of the world’s population has received at least one dose, although in the case of low-income countries this percentage barely reaches 3.1%.

Source: EFE

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