Darren Stewart, Gallo Images
As the number of infections increase across the world, and especially in Europe, here is a weekly roundup of developments in the coronavirus crisis.
After stabilising, the pandemic has strongly picked up pace this week, with 286 000 new cases recorded on average per day throughout the world, an increase of eight percent over the previous seven-day period.
In line with the past few weeks, the rate of infections is increasing the most in Europe, by 16 percent compared to the previous week. The number of new daily cases has tripled in Europe since early July, with 47 300 this week, compared with 15 000.
There has also been a jump in the Middle East, with 13 percent more and the United States and Canada 11 percent, Asia (seven percent), and Latin America and the Caribbean (three percent). The number of cases, however, continues to slow in Oceania (-20 percent), and in Africa (-seven percent).
The number of confirmed cases only reflects a fraction of the actual number of infections, as different countries have different counting practices and levels of testing.
The Czech Republic is the country in which the number of infections is increasing most, at 65 percent more or 1 300 new cases on average per day, among the countries which have recorded more than 1 000 new daily cases on average over the past week.
The Netherlands follows with 52 percent more, or 1 200 cases per day, Israel (37 percent, 3 950), the Philipines (33 percent, 3 900), Britain (32 percent, 3 400), Nepal (20 percent, 1 300) and Iran (20 percent, 2 500).
At the other end of the spectrum the biggest decreases are in Ethiopia, (-41 percent, 600 new cases per day), Costa Rica (-20 percent, 1 000), Venezuela (-19 percent, 900), Bangladesh, (-15 percent, 1 600) and Mexico (-10 percent, 4 500).
India, the United States and Brazil are the three countries which have registered the biggest number of new infections over the past seven days, with 93 200, 39 300 and 31 000 new cases per day on average, according to a toll by AFP on Friday at 11:00 GMT.
Things are getting worse in all three countries with an increase of seven percent in India, and 10 percent in both the United States and Brazil.
Argentina follows with 11 100 cases, Spain 10 200, France 8 800 , Colombia 7 000 and Peru, 58 000.
India has registered the most deaths over the past week with 1 160 per day on average, ahead of the United States (840), Brazil (770), Mexico (360), Argentina (220), Colombia (200) and Iran (140).
At the world level the number of daily deaths has dropped over the week by 10 percent, at 5 200 per day.
The pandemic has killed at least 946 727 people in the world since late December, for more than 30.2 million confirmed infections. The United States remain the country which mourns the most deaths with at least 197 655. Brazil then follows with 134 935, India (84 372), Mexico (72 179) and Britain (41 705).
