Paris (AFP)

The coronavirus pandemic has decelerated for the second week in a row around the world, mainly in the United States, Europe and the Middle East: here are the significant weekly developments, taken from an AFP database.

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

- Less than 750,000 daily cases -

With 743,900 contaminations recorded daily in the world this week, the indicator has fallen again (-6% compared to the previous week), according to an AFP report stopped on Thursday.

The indicator had started to grow continuously from February 20, after an unprecedented drop of more than a month at the beginning of the year, which had seen the contaminations reduce by half, around 355,000 daily cases.

He has been declining for two weeks.

- The United States and Europe in the green -

The pandemic slowed significantly in the United States / Canada (-21%), Europe (-20%) and the Middle East (-16%) this week, more moderately in Asia (-2%) and Africa ( -1%).

On the contrary, contamination accelerated in the Latin America / Caribbean zone (+ 5%).

In Oceania, where the coronavirus circulates very little, contaminations have more than doubled (+ 124%, 247 cases per day), mainly in Papua New Guinea which concentrates more than 90% of the cases identified in the region.

- Main accelerations -

The Maldives is the country where the epidemic is accelerating the most (+ 106%, 1,100 new cases per day), among the countries having recorded at least 1,000 daily infections during the past week.

The archipelago is however one of the most advanced countries in terms of vaccination, since it has administered at least one dose (Sinopharm or AstraZeneca / Oxford) to 56% of its population (26% of the population is fully vaccinated ).

Paraguay (+ 53%, 2,600), South Africa (+ 37%, 2,100), Malaysia (+ 31%, 4,300) and Greece (+ 30%, 2,300) follow.

The latter lifted a seven-month confinement on Friday to open its tourist season.

- Strongest declines -

The strongest decline of the week is observed in Turkey (-44%, 15,100 new cases per day), ahead of Mongolia (-42%, 700), Jordan (-41%, 700), Croatia (-35% , 1,000) and Austria (-31%, 1,100).

- The most contaminations -

India, which has experienced an outbreak in recent weeks, remains the country with the highest number of new infections in absolute terms this week (375,200 daily cases, -3%), ahead of Brazil (61,500, + 4%) , the United States (35,600, -22%), Argentina (20,900, + 4%) and Colombia (16,700, + 7%).

In proportion to the population, the country with the most cases this week remains, by far, the Seychelles (2,858 per 100,000 inhabitants), ahead of the Maldives (1,374).

The Seychelles have yet fully vaccinated 61% of their population, with Sinopharm and AstraZeneca / Oxford doses.

- Death -

India also leads the rankings for daily deaths (4,001 per day this week), ahead of Brazil (1,948), the United States (628), Colombia (464) and Argentina (420).

Globally, daily deaths fell slightly this week (12,721 per day, -1%).

© 2021 AFP