Eco Week
Economic Pulse

Covid-19: new weekly cases fall below the symbolic 5 million threshold

09/11/2022

The downward trend in the number of new Covid-19 cases continues worldwide. For the first time since the end of June, the number of infections has fallen below the symbolic 5 million weekly mark (seven-day moving average). Thus, 4 million new cases were recorded between 1 and 7 September, a 15% drop compared to the previous week (Chart 1). The situation continues to improve markedly in South America (-32%), North America and Asia (-18), but also in Europe (-5%), while it has stabilised in Africa, after two months of almost continuous decline. At the same time, vaccination campaigns continue to progress worldwide, but at a much slower pace. Sixty-eight percent of the world’s population has received at least one dose of a vaccine (Chart 2). At the same time, footfall in retail and leisure facilities remains high in developed countries. Recently, Germany, Italy and France have returned to their pre-pandemic levels. These three countries join Belgium, which reached its pre-pandemic level a fortnight ago (Chart 3). In contrast, retail and recreation mobility remains below its pre-Covid level in other countries (Spain, the US and the UK). In Japan, it suddenly fell back below its pre-pandemic level, after the sharp rise seen in mid-August (Chart 3, blue curve). Finally, the weekly GDP proxy continues to recover in Japan, while it remains on a downward trend in the UK, France, Germany, Belgium and the US. In Italy and Spain, the slight increase seen in the last point is part of a downward trend (Chart 3, black curve). This indicator is produced by the OECD using data from Google Trends, which results from searches relating to consumption, the labour market, real estate, industrial activity and uncertainty. The indicator shown here is calculated on a rolling basis over one year.

Tarik Rharrab

* Google Mobility Reports show how visits and length of stay at different places change compared to a baseline. The baseline is the median value, for the corresponding day of the week, during the 5-week period Jan 3–Feb 6, 2020. A figure of negative 30% indicates that traffic was down 30% compared to a baseline. The reports show trends over several weeks with the most recent data representing approximately 2-3 days ago—this is how long it takes to produce the reports. In order to smooth the series, we use a seven-day moving average of the raw data in the Google Mobility Reports. Source: Google.

DAILY CONFIRMED COVID-19 CASES (7-DAY MOVING AVERAGE)
SHARE OF PEOPLE WHO RECEIVED AT LEAST ONE DOSE OF VACCINE
RETAIL AND RECREATION MOBILITY & OECD WEEKLY TRACKER
DAILY NEW CASES & RETAIL AND RECREATION MOBILITY
THE EXPERT ECONOMISTS WHO PARTICIPATED IN THIS ARTICLE

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