COVID-19 continues advance in Africa
FRANCE: The COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic continued to rampage in Africa, while slowing elsewhere around the world over the past week, according to a specialised AFP database.
Here is a state of play, which could have been impacted by the Christmas holidays:
The pandemic slowed markedly this week around the world with an average of 574,500 new cases registered per day, a drop of 10 percent compared to the previous week, according to a tally by AFP on Thursday.
Only in Africa did the number of new infections increase, by 11 percent, confirming a trend which started at the beginning of December.
In other regions the rate of new infections slowed strongly, led by Latin America and the Caribbean, with a 13 percent decrease, followed by the United States and Canada and Europe, both down by 11 percent and Asia, down by seven percent.
The pandemic stabilised in the Middle East while the virus was almost at a standstill in Oceania with just 26 cases per day, or 30 percent less.
Despite their slowdown, Europe and the United States and Canada recorded the most cases over the week, 220,900 and 193,000 per day respectively, accounting alone for nearly three quarters, or 72 percent, of the infections registered around the world.
The number of confirmed cases only reflects a fraction of the actual number of infections, as different countries have different counting practices and levels of testing.On a country basis, Egypt saw the biggest spike in new cases, with an increase of 80 percent or 1,200 new infections per day, among those which registered more than 1,000 daily cases over the past week.Ireland followed with 61 percent more, or 1,100 cases, Israel 49 percent or 4,600 cases, Japan (23 percent, 3,400), South Africa (20 percent, 12,100), Lebanon (20 percent, 2,100) and Britain (20 percent, 40,500).The biggest decrease came in Azerbaijan with 57 percent less cases, or 1,300 per day, before Croatia, (-51 percent, 1,200), Bulgaria (-48 percent, 700), Hungary (-43 percent, 1,600), Georgia (-33 percent, 1,600) and Belgium (-30 percent, 1,800).
- AFP
source http://www.dailynews.lk/2021/01/02/world/237677/covid-19-continues-advance-africa
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