Weekly update and year comparison.
This week all numbers are down due to the holidays. But that's every year so year on year comparison still works.
In total 3.45 million new cases were reported last week (down from 4.04 million) to a total of 664,483,556
Also another 11,902 more deaths were reported (down from 14,410) to a total of 6,696,134
USA reported 307K new cases (down from 459K) and 2,043 more deaths (down from 2,969)
Europe reported 598K new cases (down from 1.03 million) and 3,535 more deaths (down from 5,732)
The continents
Only Asia and Africa resist the Christmas dip, although Africa has been low on reporting for a year already.
Corners of the world
No Christmas dip in Japan, currently dealing with it's highest daily death toll since the pandemic began. It also seems to have a higher case fatality ratio compared to their last biggest peak at the start of September. CFR was 0.13% (highest 7-day average cases / highest 7-day average reported deaths) start of September, currently it's 0.19%. Probably under reporting of infections, the actual numebr of infections is likely much higher.
China is also still going up despite only reporting symptomatic cases with vastly reduced testing.
https://www.ctvnews.ca/world/china-faces-bumpy-road-to-normal-as-infections-surge-1.6212598
Experts already slam the proposed extra testing on Chinese travelers
https://www.ctvnews.ca/health/covid-19-travel-restrictions-for-china-arrivals-not-effective-little-bit-absurd-infectious-disease-experts-1.6213083
Testing requirements implemented on travellers arriving from China due to the country’s surge in COVID-19 cases are "ineffective" and "a little bit absurd," according to two infectious disease experts.
Following the easing of COVID-19 polices in China, which was quickly followed by a spike in cases, the U.S., Japan, India, South Korea, Taiwan and Italy announced testing requirements for all travellers entering from China in the past week.
One expert who spoke to CP24 on Thursday said he believes the government is doing enough to prevent cases from coming into Canada but that testing policies are "performative" and not the solution.
Dr. Isaac Bogoch, an infectious disease specialist, said the measures taken by countries hoping to prevent cases from China are not "effective", citing Canada should not follow suit.
"If the goal is to keep COVID-19 out of Canada, a policy like that doesn't really do much. We have plenty of COVID-19 here already," Bogoch said in an interview CP24 Breakfast on Thursday. "If the goal here is to prevent new variants of concern from landing in Canada, well we've seen this play out multiple times before; we had policy related to travel with the United Kingdom with the Alpha variant."
The concern is the rapid spread of COVID-19 leading to a new mutation of the virus. Bogoch said after past testing policies were implemented, COVID-19 still found its way into Canada.
"These policies aren't effective," Bogoch said. "Let's not pretend for a second, that requiring a negative test prior to travel from an individual country is going to prevent us from importing COVID-19 or importing variants of concern."
Anyway it's all politics and economics. With only some countries in Europe imposing restrictions any effect is rendered useless anyway.
https://www.ctvnews.ca/health/coronavirus/covid-19-travel-curbs-against-chinese-visitors-discriminatory-state-media-1.6212920
Year over year comparison shows that Covid is more around than ever:
Wordwide:
2020 84.4 million reported infections, 1,834,484 reported deaths (2.17%)
2021 204 million reported infections, 3,618,188 reported deaths (1.77%)
2022 376 million reported infections, 1,243,462 reported deaths (0.33%)
Case fatality ratio went down a lot. The most vulnerable have passed while the vaccines and new treatments do their job to make the disease less lethal. However it's more active than ever and it seems every week I hear of another friend / acquaintance getting it.
USA:
2020 20.6 million reported infections, 356,445 reported deaths (1.73%)
2021 35.1 million reported infections, 490,460 reported deaths (1.40%)
2022 46.8 million reported infections, 271,051 reported deaths (0.58%)
Europe:
2020 23.9 million reported infections, 547,499 reported deaths (2.29%)
2021 63.8 million reported infections, 979,894 reported deaths (1.54%)
2022 155 million reported infections, 454,358 reported deaths (0.29%)
North America:
2020 23.6 million reported infections, 517,565 reported deaths (2.19%)
2021 42.4 million reported infections, 727,582 reported deaths (1.72%)
2022 55.4 million reported infections, 333,787 reported deaths (0.60%)
Asia:
2020 20.8 million reported infections, 338,426 reported deaths (1.63%)
2021 63.9 million reported infections, 916,107 reported deaths (1.43%)
2022 122 million reported infections, 257,222 reported deaths (0.21%)
South America:
2020 13.3 million reported infections, 363,696 reported deaths (2.74%)
2021 26.6 million reported infections, 828,362 reported deaths (3.12%)
2022 27.1 million reported infections, 149,914 reported deaths (0.55%)
Africa:
2020 66.2K reported infections, 66,224 reported deaths (2.36%)
2021 163K reported infections, 162,799 reported deaths (2.32%)
2022 29.3K reported infections, 29,321 reported deaths (1.00%)
Oceania:
2020 48.4K reported infections, 1,059 reported deaths (2.19%)
2021 510K reported infections, 3,444 reported deaths (0.67%)
2022 13.1 million reported infections, 18,860 reported deaths (0.14%)
New Zealand's strategy to hold off the disease worked. They got the bulk of their deaths at the much lower Case fatality ratio thanks to waiting for vaccines and treatments to become available. No doubt NZ also had a smarter way to ease restrictions than China is doing now...
Africa couldn't hold it off that long and was slow to receive vaccines. Combined with lower ability to test cases, Africa got the second highest second year Case Fatality Ratio. It's still the highest of all this year, yet testing is very minimal in Africa.
South America faced some very deadly waves driving their second year CFR up to the highest overall. South America is also a bit of an outlier in that their third year infections don't tower over their second year, no doubt reduced testing.
Anyway stay safe in the new year. The pandemic is not over, definitely not gone. But if you had it once already you know what to expect :/ We've had it twice now and definitely know we need to do everything to prevent a third round. My wife just lost her sense of smell and taste again a couple days ago. Hopefully it's long Covid and not a new round. We all had the stomach flu after Christmas, maybe a side effect of that. 2022 be gone, F off, never come back!
