Global COVID-19 Cases Rise for Second Week in a Row

Global cases of COVID-19 increased by three percent last week, exceeding three million, which is the second period of seven consecutive days in which an upward line is observed, according to statistics provided today by the World Organization for Health (WHO).

In Europe, the currently most affected region (1.7 million cases last week), positives rose 6%, while in America they rose 3% (734,000) after several months of declines, and in Asia Pacific the rise was 2% (178,000).

In the rest of the regions, however, the weekly decreases continued, both in the Middle East (-12%) and in South Asia and in Africa (-9% in both areas).

In the accumulated since the beginning of the pandemic, the infections confirmed by the WHO They total 246 million, of which 93 million were in the Americas, 76 million in Europe and 43 million in South Asia.

The deceased by COVID-19 last week they were more than 50,000, representing an increase of 8%, also the second in a row after two months of decline.

Almost half of the deaths (24,000) were reported in Europe, where weekly deaths rose 12%, while 15,000 occurred in the Americas (4% less than in the previous seven days) and almost 5,000 in the South Asia, with a notable increase of 50%.

This week the barrier of five million deaths in the world since the beginning of the pandemic was exceeded, of which 2.2 million died in America, 1.4 million in Europe and 692,000 in South Asia, the three most affected regions because of the health crisis.

The United States was again the country with the most infections recorded during the past week (528,000, 7% more), followed by the United Kingdom (258,000, a decrease of 14%), Russia (272,000), Turkey (182,000) and Ukraine (152,000) ).

The delta variant, which was first detected in India earlier this year, is already present in 99.5% of global cases, according to studies by the GISAID analysis network.

Regarding the global vaccination campaign against the COVID-19Until now, 7.130 million doses have been administered, at a current rate of 27 million daily.

49.7% of the world population has received at least one dose of vaccine against COVID-19, although in low-income countries this percentage drops to 3.9%, still far from the goal of WHO to reach 40% coverage in every nation on the planet.