With over 2 million confirmed cases and more than 1,23,000 deaths around the globe, the COVID-19 pandemic has left even the most economically prosperous countries exposed as far as the containment of the virus is concerned. The global economy is in tatters and almost a third of the world population is under partial or complete lockdown.
Over the past few months, the epicenter of the pandemic has shifted from China, where the virus first emerged in December last year, to Europe in late February to the United States by the end of March. The US alone has recorded more than 30 per cent of the total confirmed cases of the novel coronavirus across the world and nearly 33,000 deaths. While China has more or less contained the spread of the virus, several major countries in Europe are still witnessing hundreds of new cases every day.
News18.com looks at the present situation of the outbreak in some of the most severely affected countries in terms of new cases of COVID-19, daily deaths, and recoveries.
China, India, Iran and South Korea
China, which saw a gradual increase in confirmed cases through January and February witnessed an equally consistent decline in daily cases and rise in the number of recoveries late February onwards. With over 3,300 deaths reported so far in over 83,000 confirmed cases, China has seen an overall mortality rate of about four per cent whereas almost 94 per cent patients have recovered as of April 15. It has seen roughly 70 new cases daily over the past two weeks but double the number recoveries and 37 deaths during the same period.
In India, daily new cases have risen consistently in terms of absolute numbers over the past couple of weeks even as recoveries have remained low in comparison. But the rate of growth of cumulative cases has witnessed a slight decline over the past week. India has seen more than 700 daily new cases, roughly 25 daily deaths, and 87 daily recoveries, on an average, in the past two weeks.
One of the first countries to register a sudden explosion of COVID-19 cases, South Korea has managed to contain the virus while keeping the fatalities low. Hitting a peak in mid-March, South Korea has seen a consistent decline in new cases and rapid recoveries. Since the beginning of April, daily recoveries in South Korea have been nearly three times more than daily new cases.
With over 76,000 total cases and after a sharp rise in March, the Islamic Republic of Iran has also shown encouraging signs of recuperation. The middle-eastern country has witnessed a gradual and consistent rise in daily recoveries as daily new cases continue to decline. Average daily recoveries have more than average new cases since the beginning of the month. The number of daily fatalities has been falling for the past five days and on Wednesday Iran recorded 94 deaths – lowest in a month. As of April 15, Iran had 21,679 active cases and almost 50,000 recoveries.
Europe
In Europe, except for the sudden spurt in new cases on Wednesday, Germany reported more daily recoveries than daily new cases for the past week. However, the number of daily deaths has varied over the same period and has not shown any particular trend. The country still has more than 58,000 active cases of COVID-19 but has also reported over 72,000 recoveries.
In the case of Italy, which emerged as the first major hotspot after China, while the daily increase in the number of infections is not as sharp as it remained in March, the country is still consistently reporting 3,000-4,000 new cases daily. Ranging between 1,000 and 2,000, recoveries have remained encouraging yet slim against daily new cases and daily deaths, which averaged around 600 in the past week.
The situation in Spain falls somewhere in the middle of Italy and Germany. While daily recoveries here have not overtaken daily new cases, the rate is substantially better than Italy. The country has seen 3,500 daily recoveries on an average in the past week, which is nearly three-fourths of the daily new cases being reported. However, more than 600 people have died every day on average over the last week.
Likewise in France, recoveries have been slow even as new cases continue to pile up at a consistent pace.
Among European countries most affected by the virus, the United Kingdom is struggling the most to contain the spread of the virus as well as the number of deaths. The UK has seen nearly 5,000 daily new cases of the novel coronavirus and more than 700 deaths on an average since the start of the month with absolutely negligible recoveries.
With a cumulative total of around 1,00,000 confirmed infections, the UK still has over 86,000 active cases, nearly 13,000 deaths and just 368 recoveries as on April 15, according to Johns Hopkins CSSE.
The United States
The US has recorded more than a fourth of the total COVID-19 cases across the globe and is arguably the worst affected country. The world’s largest economy has seen a meteoric rise in the number of cases over the last month from less than 3,000 cases till March 14 to more than half a million as of April 15.
Over the past couple of weeks, the country has seen around 30,000 new cases and more than 1,600 deaths daily. Over 32,000 people have already lost their lives in the US, nearly 11,000 of which died just in New York City.
As far as recoveries are concerned, if not for more than 10,000 recoveries on Monday, – largest single-day figure – 3,000 patients have overcome the infection on a daily basis.
Active cases in the US still stand at 5,55,928 as on Wednesday, which essentially means there is plenty of fight left to be fought for the US.
Comments
0 comment