A total of 300,042,439 cases had been reported around the globe by Friday afternoon, according to a calculation by the AFP news agency based on information from the authorities. Since the discovery of the highly contagious Omicron variant in November, many countries have reported record numbers of infections. However, this has not yet led to a corresponding increase in deaths.
In the past seven days, almost 13.6 million cases of infection were registered worldwide by Friday afternoon (4.45 p.m. CET), which corresponds to a massive increase of 64 percent compared to the previous week. Thus, in the past seven days, an average of 1.9 million people per day became infected with the coronavirus. The previous record dates back to spring 2021, when an average of almost 817,000 new infections were reported daily between April 23 and 29.
All the negative leaders in Europe
The countries with the world’s highest infection rates per 100,000 inhabitants are all in Europe: at the top Cyprus with a seven-day incidence of 3468, followed by Ireland with 2840 new corona infections per 100,000 inhabitants, Greece (2415), Montenegro (2371 ), Denmark (2362) and France (2137). As the first non-European country, Australia comes in twelfth with an incidence of 1261.
At the same time, an average of 6172 deaths per day were recorded worldwide in the past seven days, three percent less than in the previous week. The peak was reached in January 2021 with an average of 14,803 corona deaths per day. This seems to confirm the findings from studies, according to which Omikron is more contagious than the previous variants, but the course of the disease is less severe.
The figures compiled by AFP are based on daily reports from national health authorities. However, a significant proportion of the less severe or asymptomatic cases remain undetected in many countries despite more intensive testing. In addition, the test strategies differ from country to country.
Source: Nachrichten
