The daily number of new COVID-19 cases reported around the globe last week skyrocketed.
According to the World Health Organization (WHO), there were more than 1.8 million new cases of coronavirus and 39,000 new deaths reported to them between Aug. 9-16, with an average of 260,000 cases and 5,500 deaths reported each day.
“In the past seven days, the number of reported daily cases rapidly increased,” said the World Health Organization in a weekly epidemiological update issued Aug. 17.
The Americas region, which includes Canada, the United States, Mexico and Brazil, continues to remain the most affected region on the planet. The region accounted for 53 per cent of all new cases and 75 per cent of all deaths reported worldwide last week, with nearly 975,000 new cases and nearly 30,000 deaths.
The World Health Organization noted that Peru reported a staggering increase in deaths last week.
“The number of deaths reported in Peru increased by 220 per cent in the past seven days to a total of 25,800 and a cumulative death rate of 784 deaths per 1 million population, which is currently the highest in the region.”
Although the United States saw a four per cent decline in new cases last week, the country also saw a 13 per cent increase in deaths and suspects new cases are being underreported in California.
“This decrease may in part be attributable to an underreporting of cases in California due to technology issues with the electronic laboratory reporting system which reports into the state’s disease registry system,” said the health organization.
Southeast Asia region, which includes India, Thailand and Indonesia, accounted for 26 per cent of new cases and 19 per cent of all deaths reported globally last week. India remains the most affected country in the region, accounting for most of the region’s cases.
“India continues to report the majority of cases, accounting for 85 per cent of all confirmed cases in the region as of Aug. 16 and 92 per cent of cases in the past seven days,” said WHO.
Meanwhile, Europe, Africa, Eastern Mediterranean, and the Western Pacific regions combined only accounted for 20 per cent of new cases and 37 per cent of new deaths last week.
In its update, WHO noted a rise in new deaths reported in the Western Pacific region, which includes, China, Australia, Japan, South Korea, Singapore, Malaysia, Philippines and New Zealand.
“The number of cases reported in the Western Pacific Region decreased by five per cent as the number of new cases reported in Japan, Australia, Singapore and Vietnam decreased in the past seven days. However, the number of deaths reported increased by 90 per cent mainly due to increases reported in the Philippines, Japan, Vietnam, China and Australia.”
WHO also highlighted a growing number of cases associated with “religious clusters” in South Korea.
“The Republic of Korea continues to report cases associated with religious clusters and reported an increase of 210 per cent in the number of cases compared to last week.”
Lastly, WHO noted that New Zealand is just the third country to report a rise in cases after a period of “little or no known community transmission” of COVID-19 after the nation reported its first locally acquired case in over 100 days last week.
Courtesy of WHO
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