Overseas Situation Report Friday 9th July 2021
By Mike Evans
“The secret of change is to focus all of your energy, not on fighting the old, but building on the new.” – Socrates
On Wednesday of this week, the world reached another chilling milestone in the Covid-19 pandemic – the official death toll from the virus surpassed 4 million.
In total, three countries account for more than a third of all global deaths. The United States, which has the highest number of fatalities at 606,000, accounts for 15% of the global total, followed by Brazil and India.
The grim milestone comes as new cases and deaths are dropping in the US and Europe, where significant numbers of residents have been vaccinated. But some developing countries, such as Indonesia, are still facing surging outbreaks, as authorities struggle to secure enough vaccines to protect citizens.
The Delta variant, a more transmissible and possibly more dangerous strain of coronavirus, is also contributing to an increase in cases in some countries and regions. In the US, the Delta variant now makes up more than half of all new infections, according to estimates from the US Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
An average of 7,900 Covid-19 deaths were reported each day over the past week, according to JHU. That is 46% less than the global peak of more than 14,700 daily deaths in January, but 57% higher than the pace of about 5,000 daily deaths from this time last year.
The global death toll exceeded 1 million on September 18th, 2020, 191 days after the World Health Organization declared the novel coronavirus outbreak a global pandemic. It took 115 days for the global death toll to hit 2 million, 88 days to surpass 3 million, and another 89 days to reach 4 million.
Given the difficulty in accurately tracking the spread of the virus, especially in the developing world, many experts believe the global death toll is likely significantly higher than the officially reported number.
For the rest of this report, we are taking a look at the weekly trends across the world.
We start with Europe, where we saw reported cases rise by 43%, an increase of 164,655 cases. Just as concerning, Europe saw a rise of 3% in deaths attributed to Covid-19 in the past 7 days making a total of 6,348. Russia had the highest death count at 4,827 followed by Germany with 206 and the Ukraine with 197. Three other countries, the United Kingdom, France and Italy all had over 150 deaths in the past week.
Of new cases reported, the United Kingdom had the highest number with a figure of 190,868, followed by Russia with 168,035. In Europe, the worrying factor for the past 7 days is that of the 47 countries which record their figures, 35 of them all recorded increases in cases with 29 countries recording 10%+ increases.
Next, we go to North America, which for this context includes the countries of Canada, USA and all of Central America and the Caribbean.
The weekly trend here is a rise of 11% in reported cases, 213,346 compared to 192,819 in the previous week. In deaths we have seen a 13% drop in the last 7 days. Of the 35 countries represented, 18 have had increases in cases. One good factor to report is that only 15 of the 35 countries recorded 3 deaths or more in the past week.
By definition of its population, the USA recorded the highest number of new cases at 99,909, up 5% from the previous week. Next highest was Mexico with 36,698 and Cuba with 23,584. Only Cuba of these three had an increase in deaths during the 7-day period, while both the USA and Mexico showed a decrease of 20% and 11% respectively for deaths compared to the previous week.
In Asia over the past 7 days 1,080,832 new cases were recorded, an increase of 12% on the previous week. With regards to deaths in the region there was a 2% increase to 17,284 deaths.
While India showed a decrease in cases by 9% there were a number of notable increases across the region.
Indonesia saw a 39% increase in the week to record 201,125 new cases, a 52% increase. Bangladesh, China, Pakistan and Thailand all posted 30%+ increases and in Vietnam and Myanmar, infections more than doubled in the week.
Deaths in Asia were led by India, Indonesia and Bangladesh which, between these three countries, accounted for 65% of all the deaths in the region. On the plus side for India, they saw a 25% drop in fatalities in the past week compared to the previous week.
In South America, which for many weeks has been the hotbed of the pandemic, they have seen a drop of 13% in reported cases and a 9% drop in deaths.
Brazil, Columbia and Argentina lead the way with the highest number of infections in the week but all three are showing a drop in numbers compared to the previous week.
More signs that the current wave of infections is starting to recede in South America is that only Venezuela of all the countries has shown a small increase in reported cases this week. Every other country is showing a drop with some showing significant drops. Uruguay, Chile and Ecuador all showed drops of at least 30% compared to the previous seven days.
In terms of deaths reported in the last week only Venezuela and French Guiana have increased compared to the previous week, by just 8 and 6 deaths respectively.
To Africa next where the situation is not as positive.
In the past week there has been a 21% increase in record cases across the continent and more concerning a 25% increase in deaths.
As seen in previous waves, South Africa is bearing the brunt again of infections with an increase in the past 7 days of 23% recording 138,364 new cases. This is just under 50% of the total for the whole region with other countries, like Tunisia, Zimbabwe, Mozambique and Morocco all showing increases over 50% compared to the previous week.
South Africa, Tunisia and Zambia have recorded the most deaths in the past week, with South Africa recording 1,389 out of the total deaths in the region of 4,042. Vaccinations which according to every expert is the key to saving lives are few and far between in the Africa Continent and these figures bear this out with alarming clarity.
Finally, to Oceania, and in Fiji a big spike in infections this week shows they recorded 3,522 new cases compared to 1,878 the previous week, a massive 85% increase. Previously since the start of the pandemic in March 2020, Fiji has been almost clear of infections. In fact, since the start they have only recorded 8,661 cases, so to see 5400 new cases in just 14 days is a very worrying concern for the people of Fiji. This is shown up when looking at the death statistics. Fiji has lost just 48 people to Covid-19 and 29 of them have come in the past 14 days. Let us hope that the vaccine programme is happening now in Fiji and all the other countries where we are seeing these spikes in infections.
Until the next time, Stay Safe.
Total Cases Worldwide – 186,356,010
Total Deaths Worldwide – 4,026,894
Total Recovered Worldwide – 170,495,131
Total Active Cases Worldwide – 11,833,985 (6.4% of the total cases)
Total Closed Cases Worldwide – 174,522,025
Information and resources:
https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/
https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/weekly-trends/#weekly_table
https://edition.cnn.com/2021/07/07/world/global-covid-death-toll-4-million-intl-hnk/index.html