Paris | The world has reached new contamination records over the past week, with more than 935,000 cases of COVID-19 detected every day on average from December 22 to 28, according to an AFP count made from official reports.
These figures, the highest since the start of the pandemic at the end of 2019, are based on the reports communicated daily by the health authorities in each country. A large proportion of the less serious or asymptomatic cases remain undetected despite the intensification of screening in many countries since the start of the pandemic. In addition, testing policies differ from country to country.
With 6,550,000 cases recorded between 22 and 28 December, or 935,863 per day on average, the virus is currently circulating at an unprecedented speed, significantly higher than the previous record, reached between 23 and 29 April (817,000 daily cases had then registered).
Identified contaminations, which have increased worldwide since mid-October, have increased by 37% over the last seven days compared to the previous week. “The rapid growth is probably linked to a combination between the loss of immunity and the intrinsic increase in the transmissibility of the Omicron variant”, ruled the WHO on Tuesday, warning against the “very high” risk presented by this particularly contagious variant.
For the time being, this explosion in the number of cases detected does not translate into an overall increase in the number of deaths, which has been declining for three weeks worldwide. About 6,450 new daily deaths have been deplored on average over the past seven days, the lowest since the end of October 2020. At the height of the pandemic, 14,800 daily deaths were recorded between January 20 and 26, 2021.
The majority of new infections are currently found in Europe, where more than 3.5 million cases have been recorded in the last seven days, or more than 510,000 on average per day. This level is also unprecedented, whereas the region had never recorded in previous waves more than 300,000 cases per day.
In two years since the discovery of the virus, more than 282 million cases of COVID-19 have been officially detected worldwide, for more than 5.4 million deaths. According to the WHO, the number of deaths linked to COVID-19 could be two to three times higher, taking into account the excess mortality directly and indirectly linked to Covid-19.