The number of new Covid-19 cases continues to increase across the world for the third consecutive week. 3.2 million new infections were recorded between 24 and 30 November, up 10% on the previous week. This rise was seen across all regions, with the exception of North America, where the number of cases fell by 12%. Africa (41%) and South America (36%) recorded the largest increases, followed by Europe (12%) and Asia (10%) (Chart 1). Asia alone accounts for 50% of the 3.2 million new cases across the world, with 1.6 million infections.
For this week, the highest number of new cases per country (Chart 4, black curve) was recorded in Japan (682,719, +15% compared to the previous week), South Korea (375,991, +3%) and France (301,900, +36%). This new wave is the ninth to hit France. In the United States (266,348, -12.4%), Taiwan (106,645, -17%) and Italy (100,682, -51%), the number of new cases fell compared to the previous week, but was still high. At the same time, the vaccination coverage is continuing to increase, but more slowly. To date, 13 billion doses of vaccine have been administered worldwide since the start of the vaccination campaigns during Q4 2020, including 2.64 billion booster doses. As a result, approximately 68.5% of the world's population has received at least one dose of a vaccine (Chart 2).
The weekly GDP substitution indicator has noticeably recovered in Germany and Belgium, and has more moderately recovered in France and Italy, while it is falling in the United States, Japan and, particularly sharply, the United Kingdom. The indicator is still relatively stable in Spain (Chart 3). This tracker is produced by the OECD using Google Trends data from searches relating to consumption, the labour market, real estate, industrial activity and uncertainty. The tracker shown here is calculated on a rolling basis over one year.
Tarik Rharrab
