A closer look at the numbers (07/08/20)

On August 7, 2020, the official COVID-19 death toll has risen to 714,618. More than 19 million infections (19,076,745 people) have been recorded.

Over the past 30 days, global deaths and cases have progressed in almost linear fashion. On average, 245,000 new cases were reported each day. More than 5700 deaths had to be added daily to an already too long list. Fortunately, the slope of the fatalities’ curve is lower than the one for infected cases (increases since 21/07/20: 17% and 30%, respectively).

Looking at the individual continents, we see large disparities, however.

Up to this point, Europe and the two Americas have been hardest hit by the pandemic. By far: when corrected for population, the death toll in e.g. North America is 17 times higher than in Asia.

Since our report of July 21 – leaving aside Oceania, until July barely hit by COVID-19 -, new infections are rapidly on the rise in Asia (+38.5%). South America (+37.3%) and Africa (+36.8%).

India, with 871.883 new cases in just 17 days, accounts for 2/3 of Asia’s increase. In South America, on the other hand, the virus seems to be uniformly distributed over the entire continent. Not only Brazil, by far the most populous country, but also Colombia, Peru, Argentina and Chile see an alarming increase of corona cases.

Africa just passed 1 million cases. The continent shows a very diverse picture, as described in an earlier piece. South Africa (53.3%) and Egypt (9.4%) together account for 63% of Africa’s total number of cases.

Add to these trends the recent resurgence of infections in Western Europe, and it is clear that the virus is not about to lose any of its momentum. Not anytime soon, for that matter.

Source data:

European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control

(rvdk)