Delta variant rushes global virus stream

PARIS, France (AFP) — The Covid-19 pandemic continues to surge in all regions of the world apart from Latin America and the Caribbean, leaping by nearly a half in North America.

The pandemic is accelerating almost everywhere, most markedly in the US and Canada which saw a jump of 44 percent in average daily cases over the past week.

Cases increased by 20 percent in Oceania, 11 percent in the Middle East, six percent in Asia, three percent in Europe, and one percent in Africa.

This week the only region that did not record an uptick in cases was Latin America and the Caribbean, which saw daily infections decline by 13 percent over the previous week.

The average number of new daily cases globally increased by six percent over the week to 612,000, according to an AFP tally to Thursday.

The pandemic has continued to gain ground since mid-June largely due to the highly contagious Delta variant now dominant in many countries.

The number of confirmed cases only reflects a fraction of the actual number of infections, with different countries also having varying counting practices and levels of testing.

On a country basis, Israel saw the biggest spike with a jump of 101 percent more daily cases.

Israel is among the most vaccinated countries in the world and has started administering booster jabs. It had seen its incidence rate plummet below 10 cases per 100,000 inhabitants, but this is now at 243.

Current Olympics host Japan followed with 97 percent more daily cases, then Turkey with 56 percent more, Pakistan with 54 percent and Morocco with a jump of 49 percent.

The US saw the biggest number of new cases this week with 96,800, an increase of 44 percent.

It was followed by India (40,600, an increase of five percent), and Indonesia (33,900, a drop of 20 percent).

Indonesia again recorded the highest number of daily deaths with 1,689, followed by Brazil (887) and Russia (790).

Daily deaths worldwide this week were at 9,382 per day, an increase of five percent.