Paris (AFP)

The number of people infected with the new coronavirus has continued to soar in Europe, increased in Africa and America and declined in Asia: here are the weekly highlights, taken 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.

- Outbreak in Europe -

The pandemic continued to accelerate this week around the world with 396,463 new daily cases, or 16% more than the previous week, according to a report established by AFP on Friday at 11:00 GMT.

Growth is strongest in Europe (+ 42%).

The number of new daily cases is around 171,257 compared to 121,227 the previous week.

30 of the 53 countries in Europe recorded their highest number of cases in a week from October 16 to 22.

The trend is also accelerating in Africa and North America (+ 12%) as well as in Latin America (+ 8%).

The increase is more moderate in Oceania (+ 5%), moreover very little affected by the pandemic, and in the Middle East (+ 4%).

On the other hand, the number of contaminations decreased in Asia (-12%) for a new consecutive week.

- Main accelerations -

Among the countries having recorded more than 1,000 daily cases during the past week, Switzerland is the country where the epidemic has progressed the most (+ 106%, 3,656 new daily cases).

Croatia (+ 106%, 1,045), Georgia (+ 98%, 1,195), Armenia (+ 96%, 1,549) and Italy (+ 95%, 12,018) follow.

- Strongest declines -

The strongest decline is observed in Israel, recently released from a second generalized confinement (-39%, 1,296 new cases daily).

Next are Libya (-17%, 849), India (-15%, 57,121), Burma (-13%, 1,237) and Costa Rica (-10%, 1,066).

- The most contaminations -

The United States is the country with the highest number of new infections this week (60,741 cases on average per day) ahead of India (57,121) and France (27,051).

While the trend is declining in India (-15%), it is deteriorating in France (+ 37%) and the United States (+ 13%).

Brazil (22,035, + 9%), the United Kingdom (19,549, + 22%), Russia (15,592, + 16%) and Spain (14,987, + 44%) follow.

- Death -

India remains the country with the most deaths (764 per day, -7%) ahead of the United States (752, + 4%), Brazil (491, -2%), Argentina (376, - 1%) and Mexico (372, + 19%).

- Global report -

The pandemic has killed at least 1.13 million people since its appearance at the end of December, for more than 41.7 million confirmed infections.

The United States remains the most bereaved country with at least 223,059 deaths, followed by Brazil (155,900 dead), India (117,306.), Mexico (87,894) and the United Kingdom (44,347).

© 2020 AFP