The epidemic of the new coronavirus has already infected more than 10 million people worldwide, figures confirmed by the European Center for Disease Prevention and Control. America is the continent most affected by the outbreak, with more than half of the cases reported since December 2019. New reported cases continue to increase globally and more and more Asian countries are on the list of most affected: almost 30% of new ones cases are from Asian countries.
Brazil, United States, India and Mexico are the most prominent countries in the current picture of the pandemic. African countries are the least reported, even so, the indicators of Egypt and South Africa show that the outbreak is present from north to south of the continent. European countries have less than 10% of new cases.
Since May 28, the number of new cases has persistently exceeded 100,000 per day. Globally, the peak in the number of new confirmations was on June 27, with more than 189,000 new cases in a single day.
Broadly speaking, this is the state of play in Europe: Russia has stabilized the number of new cases below 8,000 per day. Still, it is the European country most affected – today and in the accumulated total. The UK has more deaths than any other and France has the highest lethality rate. Within the EU + 1 countries, the United Kingdom, Spain and Italy have the highest ratio of total cases to deaths. Adjusting the figures to the populations of each country: Luxembourg, Belgium and Spain have more cases per inhabitant and Belgium, the United Kingdom and Spain have more deaths.
The current situation in Europe is in apparent control, even so, Russia, Belarus, Sweden and Portugal stand out for the negative. Portugal, while not robustly lowering the number of new cases, is not in a comfortable position when compared to most European countries.
In total, the latest figures from the European Center for Disease Prevention and Control point to more than 500,000 deaths associated with Covid-19. In mid-April the number of daily deaths exceeded 10,000.
The American and European continents suffered the most losses in accumulated numbers, close to 90%. The United States, Brazil and the United Kingdom are the countries with the most deaths globally. In the current phase of the outbreak, Asia is already the second most affected region, right behind America.
The United States is the country with the most confirmed cases: more than 2 million since the outbreak began. Russia, United Kingdom, Spain and Italy occupy the first European positions, in absolute values.
With the adjustment to the population, within the most affected countries, Peru and Chile stand out, but Qatar is the country with the most cases per inhabitant. With the number of new cases increasing in other parts of the world, Portugal has been falling relative positions in the list of countries with more cases counted in absolute numbers.
The first half of April corresponded to the peak of the outbreak in Portugal. The decline that followed was neither regular nor consistent, and in the second half of May, after the deflation, cases increased gradually.
European and American deaths account for 92% of the world total. 70% of deaths are concentrated in six countries: the United States, United Kingdom, Italy, Brazil, France and Spain. The United States leads the list of countries with the most deaths associated with the new coronavirus and in relation to the country’s population, the Portuguese value has already doubled.
In Portugal the number of deaths associated with the disease has been decreasing consistently since the beginning of June. The day with the most records was April 3, with 37 deaths, and the peak a few weeks later, in mid-April.
The accumulated figures show that the spread of the outbreak, globally, shows no signs of slowing down. If we look at the design of the two graphs – the one that records the total number of cases and the one that records the total number of deaths – we see that the curve of the second one is flatter. This visual evidence is in line with what the graph below shows, which records the fatality rate: the growth of new cases is greater than the increase in the number of deaths.
Since the beginning of May, the lethality rate has been on a downward trend. Globally for every 100 confirmed cases there are 5 deaths deaths associated with the disease. In the European / American phase of the outbreak, the lethality rate rose to its highest level – 28 days over 7%. France, Belgium, Italy, the United Kingdom and Hungary are the European countries with the highest lethality rate. In Portugal, the lethality rate is slightly below 4%.
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