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 (chart 1). This increase has mainly been focused on Eastern Europe, the UK and, more recently, Germany. Meanwhile vaccination campaigns have continued to gain ground. Nearly half of the world’s population has now received at least one dose of a Covid-19 vaccine. However, there are still substantial disparities between rich nations (70%) and low-income countries (2.5% see Chart 2).
As far as visits to retail and recreation facilities were concerned, we have recently seen an increase in France and Japan and a stabilisation in the UK. By contrast, visit numbers continued to fall in Belgium, Spain, Italy and the USA. It is worth noting that visit numbers are slightly below pre-pandemic levels in the main developed countries as seen in Chart 3 (blue line). Lastly, the weekly proxy indicator for GDP, relative to its level two years ago, continued to improve in Germany, France and the United States. In Japan, it has been improving for several weeks, despite a slight decline observed lately. In contrast, the indicator’s trend has stabilized in Belgium, Italy and Spain in recent weeks, while recently declining in the UK (chart 3 - black line).
The OECD Tracker is based on Google Trends resulting from queries on consumption, the labour market, housing, industrial activity as well as uncertainty. The change over a two-year period (y/2y) is calculated to avoid the base effect that would arise from a comparison with 2020 data.
