COVID-19 declines significantly for 6th week globally

The coronavirus pandemic slowed for a sixth week in a row around the world as the number of new daily cases decreased by seven percent globally to 422,400, according to an AFP tally to Thursday.

The pandemic had gained ground since mid-June fanned by the highly contagious Delta variant which has become predominant in most countries. But for more than a month and a half now it has been in decline.

However, the confirmed cases only reflect a fraction of the actual number of infections, with varying counting practices and levels of testing in different countries.

This week most of the regions of the world saw an improvement, with 32 percent less new cases in Africa, 20 percent less in Asia, 15 percent less in the Latin America and Caribbean zone, 11 percent less in the United States and Canada and 10 percent less in the Middle East.

But there was a seven percent increase in Europe and 13 percent more in Oceania.

Singapore, one of the most highly vaccinated countries in the world, saw the biggest spike in the number of new cases, with an 80 percent increase.

The Asian city state was followed by a string of countries in Eastern Europe, with a 59 percent increase in Poland, 48 percent in Latvia, 40 percent in Ukraine and Romania and 28 percent more in Slovakia.

Eastern European countries have vaccinated their population at a slower rate than in Western Europe.

At the other end of the spectrum, Japan saw the biggest drop with a 48 percent decrease in the number of cases, followed by Vietnam with 42 percent less, Morocco 40 percent less, Bangladesh 35 percent less and South Africa 33 percent less.

The US remained by far the country with the biggest number of new cases, with 100,700 per day, a decrease of 11 percent. It was followed by the United Kingdom with 34,200 cases, a drop of one percent, and Turkey with 29,000, an increase of five percent.

On a per capita basis the country that recorded the most new cases this week was again Serbia with 644 cases per 100,000 inhabitants, ahead of Mongolia (463) and Romania (440).

The US also recorded the biggest number of deaths per day at 1,782, followed by Russia with 899 and Mexico 517.

At a global level the number of daily deaths continued to drop to 7,185, a decrease of seven percent.

Cuba leads the vaccination race among countries with more than one million inhabitants, inoculating 1.37 percent of its population every day.

New Zealand followed with 1.19 percent, South Korea with 1.12 percent, Australia (1.05 percent), Peru and Vietnam (1.03 percent each) and Taiwan (one percent).

The United Arab Emirates and Portugal however have the most advanced vaccination drives, with 85 percent of their populations being fully vaccinated.

They are followed by Spain (78 percent), Singapore (77 percent), Denmark and Uruguay (75 percent each), Ireland (74 percent) and Belgium, Canada, France and Italy (73 percent).

Coronaviruses constitute the subfamily Orthocoronavirinae, in the family Coronaviridae, order Nidovirales, and realm Riboviria. They are enveloped viruses with a positive-sense single-stranded RNA genome and a nucleocapsid of helical symmetry.

The genome size of coronaviruses ranges from approximately 26 to 32 kilobases, one of the largest among RNA viruses. They have characteristic club-shaped spikes that project from their surface, which in electron micrographs create an image reminiscent of the solar corona, from which their name derives.