Paris (AFP)

Europe has remained the epicenter of the Covid-19 epidemic for the past seven days, contaminations continuing to accelerate there: here are the significant developments of the past week, from an AFP database.

An important indicator, however, the number of diagnosed cases only reflects a fraction of the actual number of infections and comparisons between countries should be taken with a grain of salt, as testing policies differ from one country to another.

- Strong acceleration in Europe -

The pandemic has accelerated significantly this week around the world, with 526,000 new cases recorded per day (a record), or 11% more than the previous week, according to a report established by AFP on Friday at 11:00 GMT.

With 282,000 new daily cases, Europe is the region recording the most contamination, far ahead of the United States / Canada (98,000 per day, + 22%).

But acceleration has slowed down slightly on the Old Continent (+ 17%, against + 40% the previous week).

The trend is also accelerating in the Middle East (+ 16%) and Africa (+ 15%).

The situation is improving slightly in Asia (-2%), more clearly in Latin America / Caribbean (-18%).

The virus is hardly circulating in Oceania (17 contaminations per day, -13%).

- Main accelerations -

Serbia is the country where the epidemic is accelerating the most (+ 100%, 1,700 new cases per day), among those having recorded more than 1,000 daily cases during the past week.

Next are Greece (+ 96%, 2,000), Sweden (+ 69%, 2,900), Hungary (+ 68%, 3,800), Austria (+ 66%, 5,400).

Outside Europe, Tunisia (+ 62%, 1,700) and Jordan (+ 61%, 4,400) are also experiencing significant acceleration.

- Strongest declines -

The strongest decline is observed in Ecuador (-44%, 800 new cases per day), ahead of Brazil (-31%, 16,800), Slovenia (-20%, 1,500), Burma (-20%, 1,100) and Argentina (-19%, 10,500).

- The most contaminations -

The United States is the country with the highest number of new infections this week, with 94,300 new daily cases, ahead of India (46,300) and France (45,500).

While the trend is improving in India (-3%), it is deteriorating in the United States (+ 22%) and in France (+ 12%).

Next come Italy (29,800, + 38%), the United Kingdom (22,600, + 2%) and Poland (21,100, + 41%).

In proportion to the population, excluding micro-states, Belgium remains the country with the most cases (862 per 100,000 inhabitants) this week, ahead of Luxembourg (765) and the Czech Republic (759).

Of the 31 countries with an incidence rate above 200, 30 are European.

- Death -

The United States has recorded the most deaths in the past week (893 per day), ahead of India (541), France (431), Mexico (428) and Iran (410).

- Global report -

The pandemic has killed at least 1.235 million people worldwide since the end of December, for more than 48.7 million confirmed infections.

The United States remains the most bereaved country with at least 234,944 dead, ahead of Brazil (161,736) and India (124,985).

Europe this week became the region of the world with the most contamination since the start of the epidemic, with a total of 11.9 million, ahead of Latin America / Caribbean (11.5 million).

© 2020 AFP