Between 4 and 10 January, 3.4 million new cases of Covid-19 were recorded worldwide, representing a fall of -3% compared to the previous week (Chart 1). This is the third consecutive week of falling infections following seven weeks of almost continuous increases. The number of new cases continues to fall sharply in South America (-24%) and, to a lesser extent, in Europe (-12%). The number of cases is also falling in Asia (-4%), but is still very high. In the other regions, the number of new cases is increasing again in North America (+31%) and in Africa (+25%). Vaccination coverage also continues to be rolled out, but at a progressively slower rate. To date, 13.2 billion doses of vaccine have been administered worldwide since the start of the campaigns in Q4 2020, including 2.69 billion booster doses. As a consequence, around 69% of the global population have received at least one dose of vaccine (Chart 2).
Finally, the weekly GDP proxy indicator remained strongly negative in the United Kingdom and, to a lesser extent, in the United States, Belgium and Japan, while it stabilised in France. In Germany, Italy and Spain, a dip seems to be emerging on the most recent points (Chart 3, black curve). 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
