Having been in decline for around two months, the number of Covid-19 cases is rising worldwide. Three million new cases were reported between 27 October and 2 November, up 3.2% relative to the previous week. This concerns all parts of the world an in particular Europe, where the number of cases is climbing fast (+11.8%) (Chart 1): 1.54 million new cases out of a global total of 3 million have been recorded in Europe (51% of the total). The biggest number of new cases has been in Russia (281,042), while the UK has reported a total of 275,078, Ukraine 153,353, Germany 134,891 and Romania 73,463.
More than 2.85 million new Covid-19 cases were reported worldwide between 14 and 20 October, a 2.3% decrease from the previous week. This has been the smallest decline since August. All regions contributed to this drop with the notable exception of Europe, which reported an increase for the fourth consecutive week of 14.7% (chart 1). Of the 2.85 million new cases worldwide, 1.16 million were reported in Europe (41% of the total). The number of new cases was highest in the UK (295,643), Russia (211,841), Ukraine (102,564), Romania (100,733) and Germany (68,259). Vaccination campaigns continue to progress around the globe (chart 2), although the pace has slowed recently. Retail and recreation footfall barely exceeds pre-pandemic levels in Belgium and Germany
The number of new Covid-19 cases around the world dropped below the symbolic level of 3 million in the week of 7 to 13 October, representing a 7% fall on the previous week. This fall was shared across all regions other than Europe, where case numbers climbed for the third week in a row. This increase has mainly been focused on Eastern Europe, the UK and, more recently, Germany. Meanwhile vaccination campaigns have continued to gain ground.
The number of daily new Covid-19 cases reported worldwide continues to decline. Meanwhile, there has been a recent drop in visits to retail and recreation facilities in France, Italy, Belgium, Japan and the UK, but continued increases in Germany, Spain and the USA. It is worth noting that in Belgium such visits are still at their pre-pandemic levels, despite recent falls.
The Covid-19 pandemic continued to ease for the fifth consecutive week, with new cases down by 10.3% between 23 and 29 September, relative to the previous week (chart 1). This represents the biggest fall in case numbers since the end of August 2021. As far as visits to retail and recreation facilities are concerned, we have recently seen weaker numbers in some euro area countries.
The global Covid-19 pandemic continued to ease for the fourth consecutive week, with new cases down by 6% between 16 and 22 September, relative to the previous week. This downward trend was observed in all regions. Meanwhile, vaccination campaigns have continued to gain ground.
Global Covid-19 case numbers have started to decline again after a rising trend lasting nearly two months. Some 4.2 million new cases were recorded between 2 and 8 September, a reduction of 6.3% on the previous week. This development was shared between all regions: Africa -25%; South America -16.2%; Asia -7.8%; Europe -2.3%; and North America -2.3%. The total number of deaths also fell over the same period. Meanwhile vaccination campaigns continue to gain ground, with 5.6 billion vaccine doses given by 8 September.
After rising for almost two months, Covid-19 infections are stabilising globally but remain high. In the week of 25-31 August, 4.6 million new cases were reported (chart 1), similar to the previous week’s figure. However, the trend varies between the world’s regions, with cases rising in North America (+4.6%) and falling in South America (-15.2%) and in Africa (-6.4%), while the situation is stabilising in Europe (due to declines in France and Spain – see chart 4) and in Asia. The vaccine rollout is continuing to accelerate around the world. According to Johns Hopkins University, more than 5.4 billion vaccine doses have been given worldwide (chart 2).
According to the latest figures published by Johns Hopkins University, 4.6 million new Covid-19 cases were recorded worldwide between 19 and 25 August, up 1.2% on the previous week. Cases increased in both North America (10.8%) and Europe (3.5%). Conversely, decreases were logged in South America (7.7%), Asia (4.0%) and Africa (1.9%) over the same period (chart 1). In addition, vaccination drives have continued to make progress around the world, especially in the European Union where the pace of vaccination remains very high (chart 2).
The Delta variant is on its way to becoming the dominant strain of Covid-19 and has now been found in some 105 countries. Despite the health situation, visits to retail and leisure facilities remained strong, returning to their summer 2020 levels and marking a return to something close to normal in all advanced economies.
After trending downwards for 7 weeks, the figures for the Covid-19 pandemic have begun to rise again worldwide. In recent weeks, the OECD Weekly Tracker of annual GDP growth has been trending lower in most countries.
The Japanese economy ended 2019 on a negative note. As has happened before, consumer spending was hit by the VAT hike introduced in October. Typhoon Hagibis also put a significant dent in domestic demand, particularly in the area of private sector business investment. The start of 2020 looks difficult given the Coronavirus outbreak and the close economic relations between Japan and China.
After picking up in October, the credit pulse of non-financial corporates (NFC) in the eurozone dipped again in November. Yet the decline in the private sector’s credit pulse was still very mild, bolstered by the remarkable stability of the credit pulse for households. Recent trends should extend into first-quarter 2020: the banks surveyed expect loan demand from NFC to continue to ease. Inversely, exceptionally low interest rates should continue to boost loan demand from households, mainly for home loans.
