Paris (AFP)

India, the United States, Brazil and South Africa are currently recording the largest increases in the number of Covid-19 cases since early July. These four economic giants are still far from having reached the "peak" of the pandemic, according to experts. State of play.

United States

Over 3.5 million cases have been reported in total, and forty out of fifty states are experiencing increases. California (West), the first American state to impose containment in March, decided on Tuesday to close bars, indoor restaurants, cinemas, zoos ...

A first peak occurred in mid-April, followed by a "plateau", before a further acceleration from mid-June. We therefore consider that the United States remains in the middle of a first wave.

The virus entering through the northwest and northeast is now spreading to the south, the Midwest and the western United States. The most affected states are Texas, Florida, Arizona and California.

As in India, experts believe that this federal country is struggling to fight the epidemic because of the heterogeneous response to it. The confinements were applied in "patchwork" and if New York now seems less affected, the virus has strengthened elsewhere.

President Donald Trump has been accused of "politicizing" science, causing controversy around the mask, which he has long refused to wear, and citing conspiracies around the Covid-19 to weaken it. Spared states have refrained from taking measures, easing containment, which has reignited the spread of the virus.

In the most affected states more than 5% of people tested are reached, well above the thresholds set by the World Health Organization (WHO). At this rate, up to 40 million people could be infected before the end of the year.

Brazil

The largest economy in Latin America (209 million inhabitants), headed by Jair Bolsonaro since October 2018, is approaching 2 million cases and already more than 70,000 deaths.

The death rate reaches 354 per million inhabitants, but specialists estimate that the real number of cases could be up to ten times higher and that of deaths, go up to double.

The northern Amazonian states, territories of many indigenous peoples with weak immune defenses for some, are on the front line. And among the 27 Brazilian states, Sao Paulo and Rio de Janeiro (south-east) record, in absolute value, the highest number of contaminations. Rio de Janeiro has a particularly high mortality rate (665 per million inhabitants).

We observe an increase in the Southern States, hitherto spared. "I can't visualize a real plateau" of the curve, said on July 10 to AFP Domingos Alves, coordinator of the Health Research Laboratory (LIS) of the Faculty of Medicine of Ribeirao Preto: "The number of contaminations will continue to increase until October-November, with fluctuations, "he said.

The delay in the preventive measures to be taken and the lack of tests were aggravated, according to many observers, by a politicization of the pandemic. Jair Bolsonaro, who contracted the disease himself, waged a tireless campaign against the governors who imposed containment measures in the name of the survival of the economy.

India

The fifth world economy, 1.3 billion inhabitants, could soon exceed the threshold of one million cases of Covid-19. If the number of deaths remains very low - 17 per million inhabitants, compared to 663 in the United Kingdom - the pandemic has been galloping since the beginning of July, which places it in this list of the four countries where it progresses the fastest .

Narendra Modi's government decided on Tuesday to reconfigure almost one in ten Indians. These are the 125 million inhabitants of the great State of Bihar (north-east) until the 31st, after lifting of the containment in June and the 13 million of the agglomeration of Bangalore (South).

The most affected states are Maharashtra (West), where Bombay and its famous Bollywood studios are located, and Tamil Nadu, in the South. The capital New Delhi alone accounts for more than a tenth of cases.

"The peak of the wave is yet to come: according to my forecasts, in mid-August, but other scientists are talking about the months of October, November or December," virologist T. Jacob John told AFP. "There are many reasons for (the outbreak): too few tests, very heterogeneous management by states and cities. The lack of centralization (of data) makes it difficult to predict the trajectory of the virus and the epicenter changes from state to state. the other ", adds biologist Samit Bhattacharyya, professor at the private university of Shiv Nadar University.

"Health has never been a political priority in India", underlines T. Jacob, evoking a budget not exceeding 2% of the GDP. "Culturally, the Indians accept all tragedies, and death, without complaining. The confinement will have severe economic consequences and this too will be accepted, with stoicism."

South Africa

Africa's leading industrial power, with its 58 million inhabitants, is experiencing a veritable surge of cases, with more than 8,000 cases per day since the beginning of July, bringing the total to more than 300,000, according to data collected by the AFP from official source. Health authorities register 500 cases per hour.

On Sunday, President Cyril Ramaphosa also stressed "the strength and speed of progress", a source "of great concern". He reimposed a curfew and suspended the sale of alcohol.

In mid-July the provinces most affected are Gauteng, where Johannesburg, the economic and financial hub, is located, and the capital Pretoria. Just over a third of the cases are concentrated there. The Western Cape province, so popular with tourists, follows with almost 30% of the cases. KwaZulu-Natal, where the zero patient who arrived on March 5 from Italy has been identified, accounts for almost 10% of cases.

"We are seeing a very rapid rise in Johannesburg and anticipate that it will continue for several more weeks," epidemiologist Salim Abdool Karim, chief government adviser on the Covid, told AFP. "Johannesburg is in some ways like New York: densely populated and social distancing is a challenge."

"Small groups of people can cause large contagions and that's what we're seeing." The containment decided at startup also slowed the progression of the virus, but remained "unsustainable in the long term, from a point of economic life. We anticipated that we would be forced to reduce the measures, but we needed time to prepare us, "he added.

© 2020 AFP