Rising cases in US, Europe fuel another global surge

After three months of near-consistent decline following the brutal Delta wave in the West, new cases of Covid-19 have again started rising the world over in the past month or so

After three months of near-consistent decline following the brutal Delta wave in the West, new cases of Covid-19 have again started rising the world over in the past month or so. A look at the regions that are fuelling the latest wave of infections in the world.

The skyline with its office buildings and the banking district are photographed during sunset as the spread of the coronavirus disease (Covid-19) continues and the German government plans new pandemic control measures in Frankfurt, Germany,(Reuters)

North America and Europe dominate numbers as Asia’s share shrinks

For the first time since the end of September, the seven-day average of daily infections across the world again soared above the half-million mark on Wednesday – this means that every day in the past week, there have been half a million new cases of Covid-19 the world over. Out of every 10 infections reported in the past week in the world, six have come from Europe (currently the biggest outbreak centre), while two have come from North America. The rising infections in both these continents are clearly fuelling the global wave again.

Yet another wave starts to rise in the US

The United States, the world’s worst-hit country by the virus in terms of total cases and deaths, remains the world’s biggest outbreak centre. The timing of the latest rise is particularly alarming as the latest wave of cases comes ahead of the holiday travel season, which experts fear may lead to an extended winter wave. On Wednesday, the US reported 104,702 new cases -- the highest in over 40 days.

Across Europe, new surges ravage nations

Most countries in Europe are seeing a heavy and consistent surge over recent weeks, while countries such as the UK have only started seeing an upsurge in the last few days. Nations such as Germany, Austria, Netherlands and Russia are all currently experiencing their worst-ever recorded waves, while the Covid wave in nations like Poland is set to break all previous records.

For context as to how bad the wave is in east Europe, Austria is reporting the most cases respective to its size in the world – it has reported 1,350 cases per million residents in the past week. For context as to how high this number is, the US (as stated above, reporting the highest number of new cases) is only seeing around 260 cases per million population – five times fewer infections than Austria. Similarly, high numbers are seen in Czechia (1160 cases per million in the past week) and the Netherlands (988 cases per million).