The Covid-19 pandemic continued to accelerate this week around the world, especially in southern Africa where the contagious Omicron variant appeared: here are the striking weekly developments, according to AFP data.
This week, however, the trends may be distorted by data catching up in several countries.
An important indicator, the number of cases diagnosed only reflects a fraction of the actual number of infections and comparisons between countries should be taken with caution, as testing policies differ from one country to another.
More than 630,000 cases daily.
With 632,900 contaminations recorded every day in the world, the indicator has increased for the ninth consecutive week (+ 2% compared to the previous week), according to a report stopped on Thursday. This week, like the previous ones, new contaminations have mainly exploded in Africa (+ 57%).
Main accelerations.
Eswatini (+ 119% compared to the previous week, 1,100 new daily cases) is the country having recorded the biggest acceleration of the week among those with at least 1,000 daily infections.
This country, formerly called Swaziland, is located in southern Africa, a region struggling with the new Omicron variant.
Argentina (+ 66%, 3,700), South Africa (+ 54%, 23,200), Canada (+ 44%, 4,900) and Australia (+ 43%, 2,200) follow.
Main decreases.
Brazil is the country with the largest decline this week (-52%, 4,000), ahead of Austria (-35%, 3,600), Romania (-34%, 800) and Hungary (-27 %, 5,300) and Belgium (-27%, 11,700).
The more contaminations.
The United States remains, by far, the country with the highest number of new infections in absolute terms this week (122,100 daily cases, + 1%), ahead of the United Kingdom (62,400, + 32%) and France (50,700, + 7%).
In proportion to the population, excluding micro-states, the country with the most new cases this week is Denmark (925 per 100,000 inhabitants), ahead of the Czech Republic (750) and Switzerland (735).
Death.
The United States also has the highest number of daily deaths, 1,286 per day this week, ahead of Russia (1,146) and Poland (421).
Globally, 7,084 deaths have been recorded every day this week, a figure down 6%.
