How coronavirus has spread across the world
PARIS, France — On January 11, the first coronavirus death was officially recorded in China. Eight months after the identification of the disease that appeared in Wuhan in December 2019, the world is on the brink of recording one million deaths.
1,000 deaths in the first month
The Sars-CoV-2 virus which causes the illness known as Covid-19 first spread rapidly in China, particularly in the province of Wuhan. In the space of one month, the country recorded one thousand deaths.
That initial toll was worse than the total number of deaths caused by earlier acute respiratory syndrome SARS, which circulated in Asia in 2002-2003 and led to 774 fatalities.
Countries and territories outside continental China were relatively untouched at that point but the virus was already starting to circulate there.
The Philippines registered its first case on February 2 and Hong Kong two days later, followed by Japan and France on February 13 and 14.
'Black April' for Europe and US
In February cases soared. By March 11, when the WHO declared the new coronavirus a "pandemic", 4,500 deaths had been recorded worldwide, across 30 countries and territories.
Two-thirds were still in China but Italy (800 deaths) and Iran (300 deaths) saw cases escalate, with deaths soon following.
The number of people dying every day in Europe and the United States rose swiftly up until mid-April, reaching peaks in the second week of more than 4,000 and 2,700 average daily deaths respectively.
Today the United States remains the hardest-hit country for deaths, with over 200,000 recorded.
On a global scale, the deadliest week was April 13 to 19 when more than 7,460 coronavirus deaths were officially reported every day. By then the total number of deaths worldwide had risen to nearly 170,000, or double the level reported on March 31.
Since the start of June, the average number of deaths per day has hovered around 5,000.
Latin America, the new epicentre
In June, the epicentre of the pandemic shifted to Latin America and the Caribbean. From July 15 to August 15, recorded deaths in the region did not drop below an average of 2,500 per day.
Only then did they start to fall gradually, reaching an average 1,900 deaths per day last week.
Brazil became the country with the most deaths in total after the United States (more than 138,000). Taking into account the size of their populations, Peru (958 deaths per one million inhabitants), Bolivia (659), Brazil (650), Chile (644) and Ecuador (630), are among the 10 worst-affected countries worldwide, alongside European countries like Belgium (859) and Spain (661).
A second wave?
In Asia, where the toll was lower than 100 deaths per day up until mid-April, fatalities have been steadily increasing. The continent has exceeded 1,000 deaths per day almost continually since July 20 and is today approaching 1,500 (1,407 on average over the last seven days).
India has been the worst hit, recording a total of 90,000 deaths (more than 1,100 per day last week).
Cases are also rising again in Europe, reinforcing concerns about a possible second wave. New cases on the continent are around 20 percent higher this week than last and deaths are up 28 percent at 614.
Fatalities are also increasing again in the Middle East (around 330 last week, up 18 percent on the week before).
Africa and Oceania spared
According to official statistics, Africa has been less affected than other continents: deaths have been falling since August (fewer than 200 per day in mid-September, after a peak of around 400 in early August).
In Oceania, meanwhile, the average daily number of deaths has never exceeded two dozen.
Follow this page for updates on a mysterious pneumonia outbreak that has struck dozens of people in China.
New Zealand Prime Minister Chris Hipkins says on Sunday that he had contracted COVID-19, testing positive at a key point in his flailing campaign for re-election.
Hipkins saYS on his official social media feed that he would need to isolate for up to five days -- less than two weeks before his country's general election.
The leader of the centre-left Labour Party said he started to experience cold symptoms on Saturday and had cancelled most of his weekend engagements. — AFP
The World Health Organization and US health authorities say Friday they are closely monitoring a new variant of COVID-19, although the potential impact of BA.2.86 is currently unknown.
The WHO classified the new variant as one under surveillance "due to the large number (more than 30) of spike gene mutations it carries", it wrote in a bulletin about the pandemic late Thursday.
So far, the variant has only been detected in Israel, Denmark and the United States. — AFP
The World Health Organization says on Friday that the number of new COVID-19 cases reported worldwide rose by 80% in the last month, days after designating a new "variant of interest".
The WHO declared in May that Covid is no longer a global health emergency, but has warned that the virus will continue to circulate and mutate, causing occasional spikes in infections, hospitalisations and deaths.
In its weekly update, the UN agency said that nations reported nearly 1.5 million new cases from July 10 to August 6, an 80% increase compared to the previous 28 days. — AFP
The head of US intelligence says that there was no evidence that the COVID-19 virus was created in the Chinese government's Wuhan research lab.
In a declassified report, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) says they had no information backing recent claims that three scientists at the lab were some of the very first infected with COVID-19 and may have created the virus themselves.
Drawing on intelligence collected by various member agencies of the US intelligence community (IC), the ODNI report says some scientists at the Wuhan lab had done genetic engineering of coronaviruses similar to COVID-19. — AFP
Boris Johnson deliberately misled MPs over Covid lockdown-breaking parties in Downing Street when he was prime minister, a UK parliament committee ruled on Thursday.
The cross-party Privileges Committee said Johnson, 58, would have been suspended as an MP for 90 days for "repeated contempts (of parliament) and for seeking to undermine the parliamentary process".
But he avoided any formal sanction by his peers in the House of Commons by resigning as an MP last week.
In his resignation statement last Friday, Johnson pre-empted publication of the committee's conclusions, claiming a political stitch-up, even though the body has a majority from his own party.
He was unrepentant again on Thursday, accusing the committee of being "anti-democratic... to bring about what is intended to be the final knife-thrust in a protracted political assassination".
Calling it "beneath contempt", he said it was "for the people of this to decide who sits in parliament, not Harriet Harman", the veteran opposition Labour MP who chaired the seven-person committee. — AFP
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