The Overseas Situation Report Friday 17 September 2021
by Mike Evans
“Persistence makes all the difference between success and failure. If you keep at it, every obstacle must give in.”
– Dr. Moses Simuyemba
In this report we are looking at the trends of Covid 19 infections around the world, in a week where the drop in new infections compared to last week was 8% and was less than 4 million new cases worldwide.
However, whilst most regions have seen drops, many individual countries are seeing a rise again in new cases. To start with let’s look at Europe, where overall the drop in new cases in the past week has been 7%. Looking closer at this figure, there is a definite East West divide in so far as those countries in the Eastern side of Europe are seeing a surge in new cases whereas those in the west are seeing a drop.
In the East of Europe we are seeing a big increase in cases from a number of countries. Of the 47 countries listed by Worldometer.info the top ten countries with the highest increase in the past week all with the exception of Andorra are in the Eastern side of Europe. There is only one country in this region, Northern Macedonia which has shown a drop in cases in the past 7 days. In terms of actual numbers none of them are close to the figure the UK has reported in the last week of 219,446, although this is a drop of 18% on the previous week. The Eastern country with the highest number of new infections is Russia at 129,002 but again this is a drop compared to the previous seven days. Serbia has seen a rise of 48% in new infections to report a figure of 43,984 and Ukraine reported a 51% increase to 22,520.
Compare this with the western side of Europe and we see a drop in infections in many countries. In the week Portugal has seen a drop of 32% in new cases, while our nearest neighbour, Spain has seen a drop even bigger of 34%. With France, Italy, Greece all showing drops in infections it does seem to be that those countries who have been able to vaccinate a higher proportion of their citizens are winning the fight against the virus. A look at Our World in Data shows that in the Ukraine only 14% of their citizens have had 1 vaccination and in Serbia this figure is 44% whereas in Portugal the figure is 87% and in Spain it is 80%.
Whilst overall Europe has seen a drop in new infections, the death rates in the past week have gone up by 3% from 10,900 to 11,264. Russia with 5,459,this is a drop of 2% on the previous seven days, but the UK with 973, a rise on the week of 4%, followed by France with 570 and Spain with 491, both showing a fall of 16% and 27% respectively. Whilst data showing whether these deaths were in vaccinated or non vaccinated people is not available it is worth remembering that the UK, France and Spain have very high rates of vaccinations compared to the rest of Europe.
In pure percentage increases across the Eastern European area we see that in the past week, Germany saw a 77% increase in deaths, Romania, 90% increase, Serbia 36% and Ukraine a 55% increase in deaths.
Across the Atlantic in the North America region we saw a stabilizing trend in the past week with new infections dropping by just 0.2%. The USA has the bulk of the cases with 1,070,235, an increase in the past week of just under 1%. It is worth remembering that in the whole of the region the total number of new cases was 1,303,600 so you can see what a huge part of this is from the USA.
In Canada they saw a rise in the week of 15% compared to the previous week with a total of 30,110 new cases across the country. Whilst Mexico has seen a drop in cases by 18% in the past week there are worrying concerns that the virus is taking a hold in some parts of the caribbean. The past week has seen a more than 300% increase in cases in St Vincent and the Grenadines, a 73% increase in Bermuda, 32% in the Bahamas, 30% increase in St Kitts & Nevis and a 21% increase in Barbados. The concern is that as the tourist winter holiday season starts these countries who rely on tourism are going to be affected in not just health concerns but in economic concerns as well.
Deaths have risen across the North America region in the past week by 8% with notable rises from both the USA and Canada of 22% and 38% respectively. In the Caribbean region ten countries have all seen an increase in deaths in the past week compared to the previous seven days. In total across the region in the past week saw 17,828 deaths compared to 16,550 in the previous week.
In Asia the trend over the past week has been a steady downward spiral of new infections. Across the whole region there has been a drop of 13% in new reported cases and a 16% drop in deaths in the past week compared to the previous seven days. Leading the way with the reduction in cases is Japan where they saw a 43% reduction in the week, followed by Azerbaijan and Indonesia with reductions of 39% and 35% respectively. India by sheer numbers continues to have the highest number of new cases in the week at 207.017 but this is a 27% reduction compared to the previous week.
Countries where infections are on the rise in the past week include, The Philippines with a 6% rise, Singapore, 144% increase, Cambodia, 32% and Israel with a 15% increase.
Whilst the region has seen a significant drop in deaths in the past week, there are some countries where this trend is not happening. Malaysia saw an increase of 28% in the past week, as did Japan at 16%, Mongolia at 114% and Israel at 9%.
This after Israel’s vaccination rollout that began last December was among the fastest in the world and brought infections to a trickle by June, when all pandemic restrictions were lifted. But when cases began surging again through the summer, health experts confronted a key question, said Gabi Barbash, a former health ministry director general now with the Weizmann Institute of Science.
Had the surge been caused by the PfizerBioNTech vaccine waning effectiveness five months after the second jab, or, was the Delta variant’s ability to break through vaccine protection to blame? “When the fourth wave erupted, we were not sure which was the more dominant factor,” Barbash told AFP. But weeks after the third jab rollout began, the severe case count — which shot up from more than 70 in late July to 600 by mid-August — has stabilised, currently standing below 700. Infections also remain very low along the triple jabbed.
Finally to Africa where we see that in the past week new cases has dropped by 24% compared to the previous week. Of the 54 countries that make up this region in the past week 30 of those have shown an increase in cases. Whilst most of these increases are relatively small it is still the more populated countries that lead the table in actual infections. There were a total of 117,251 new cases recorded in the past week across the region and South Africa accounted for 32,428 and Morocco for 17,529. Both countries showed a drop in new cases by 35 and 34% respectively.
Of the more populous countries Egypt had an increase of 36% in new infections compared to the previous week, with Angola and Madagascar also showing rises of 31 and 27% respectively.
With regards to deaths in the region, the drop across the region saw 27 countries with lower deaths in the past week although this was not replicated in certain countries. Ethiopia saw a 49% increase in the week, Kenya saw a 31% increase and Egypt saw a 4% increase.
In closing this report it is obvious that not all parts of the world are at the same stage of combatting the virus and we have a long way to go before we can truely say that we have beaten it!
Until the next time Stay Safe.
Total Cases Worldwide – 227,374,381
Total Deaths Worldwide – 4,675,976
Total Recovered Worldwide – 204,092,822
Total Active Cases Worldwide – 18,605,583 (8.2 % of the total cases)
Total Closed Cases Worldwide – 208,768,798
https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/
Information and resources:
https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/weekly-trends/#countries