Covid cases continue retreat, except in Asia

The Covid-19 pandemic continued its strong retreat this week around the world, with the number of cases cut by half since their peak a month ago.

But in Asia the number of cases remained stubbornly high, increasing by a fifth.

The average number of global daily cases dropped for the fourth week in row, by 16 percent to 1.66 million, according to an AFP tally to Thursday.

Over a month the decrease in cases is more spectacular: they have been cut by half since they soared to peaks of 3.37 million in the week of January 21, due to the highly contagious Omicron variant.

There were 39 percent fewer cases in the Middle East, 37 percent fewer in the United States-Canada zone, down 24 percent in both Africa and the Latin America-Caribbean zone, a fifth fewer in Europe and 12 percent less in Oceania.

Hong Kong saw the biggest increase in new cases this week, with the number increasing by 331 percent compared to the previous week, prompting it to toughen its testing and social distancing requirements.

New Zealand followed with 187 percent more, South Korea with 85 percent more, Vietnam plus 71 percent, while cases were up 36 percent in Singapore.

Germany overtook Russia to record the highest number of new cases, with an average of 164,600 infections a day, which was still a drop of nine percent. Russia had 155,400 new cases, a drop of 17 percent, while South Korea took third place with 121,900, an increase of 85 percent.

The number of Covid-linked deaths continued its decline, dropping by 10 percent globally, to 9,348 per day.

The US again mourned the most deaths over the week, with an average of 1,905 per day, followed by Brazil (784) and Russia (772).