Archives: Situation Reports

The Overseas Situation Report Tuesday 28 September 2021

by Mike Evans

“I think protecting your family and giving to them is so important. It’s the most important achievement.”  

– Natalia Vodianova

As we reach the end of another month with the pandemic this report is looking at the Caribbean. In the past week this area has seen big increases in new cases while across the world there has been a reduction in new cases..

For many the chance to visit the Caribbean is the holiday of a lifetime. At the moment though many people will be watching closely the rise in infections across this area. In the past week, according to the Worldometer.info charts 10 countries in the Caribbean occupy places in the top 50 countries where the infections in the last seven days have increased. This comes at a time where across the world the rate of infection compared to the previous week is down by 12% and the Caribbean is seeing a marked increase in cases.

To look in detail, we must of course recognise that these are countries with small populations and as such, any increases tend to look alarming as the percentages will be based on smaller numbers. However, this past week St Vincent & the Grenadines saw an 84% increase in new cases compared to the previous seven days and currently have a  seven day rate per 100,000 of population of 466. Anguilla, Dominica and Barbados follow with increases in cases of 74%,69% and 59% respectively for the past week and  7 day rates of 217, 608 and 329.4 respectively.

In the week where the UN 76th General Assembly took place the Prime Minister of St Vincent called for  everyone to put aside their differences and work in solidarity to tackle the pandemic.  “Globally, we have witnessed unacceptable vaccine nationalism; the politicization of the roll-out of the vaccines; and the roll-out of vaccines for the rich first and the poor afterwards” he lamented.

He spoke of vaccine hesitancy amongst his country’s population, underscoring the need to stop “anti-vax misinformation and disinformation” and warned that the pervasive inequalities that defined the pre-COVID political and socioeconomic order “must not become tomorrow’s nightmarish reality”.

Mr. Gonsalves also acknowledged “notable, and noble, work by some global institutions, such as the World Health Organization (WHO), World Bank, and COVAX Facility, to make vaccines more accessible to poor or marginalized countries”. He went on to say, It is true, too, though relatively late in day, that some rich countries in the North Atlantic (USA, Canada, and the United Kingdom) have delivered or agreed to deliver, freely, from their surpluses, vaccines to some less developed countries; we are very grateful. Still, though, some of these countries may be so slow in their promised deliveries that they may end up, embarrassingly, with expired doses of the vaccines running into several millions. It is timely to remind all of us that the noblest form of solidarity is to give not from the abundance or surplus that we may have but from the little that we possess; that is the lesson of the proverbial widow’s mite.

He also took a swipe at those in control; of the world’s media, not only have the ways of the old order, pre-COVID, tended, still, to guide powerful countries in their actions; so, too, the behemoths in global communications. These entities, enveloped in mega profits and profiteering, own and control the various internet platforms, with little or no public regulation, and have ignored or abandoned any real sense of responsibility for the anti-vax misinformation and disinformation which occupy cyberspace. As a consequence, real people die in multitudes across the world.

Meanwhile in Barbados where the rate of infection is increasing the Prime Minister, Mia Mottley disclosed that a number of Ghanain and Cuban nurses will soon arrive in Barbados to help with the epidemic. After a few weeks of Barbadians being mandated by law to be inside their homes by 6 pm on Sundays, as one of the strategies to control the rising cases amidst the Delta variant, Mottley said statistics are showing that the virus is not spreading in public spaces, but regrettably in the homes and neighbourhoods.

Speaking at a news conference in New York, Mottley called on Barbadians to play their role in keeping their households and communities safe.

“The Directive finishes tonight and in fact there will be a new directive as of tonight as well as a new proclamation from Her Excellency [Dame Sandra Mason], which will be issued and that has to be dealt with in 30 days in Parliament. So that is really the only major change for now.

“I pray that if we can hit the 20 000 target [of persons getting the COVID-19 vaccine] in the next two weeks, that the [9 pm] curfew would be extended until midnight. And we have said this all along. It is not a case of holding people to ransom, it is a case of reality of public health management and the capacity to be able to reduce the numbers as we go through our day,” she said.

Putting Barbados’ COVID-19 fight into context, Prime Minister Mottley said the country has had only 7, 200 positive COVID-19 cases in the past 20 months, which means that 270, 000 have not had it. But, Mottley said while the statistics are relatively low when compared to other countries, the situation is serious, considering that no one knows if they will contract the virus.

She said that while 49 per cent of Barbadians have had at least one dose of the COVID-19 vaccine, she is bothered that children under 12-years-old are the ones getting the virus. Prime Minister Mottley said that reality stands that children in this age group have to be contracting the virus right in their homes.

Meanwhile across the Caribbean sea in Bermuda this small island country has seen a big rise in covid 19 infections in the past couple of weeks. Its current 7 day rate of infection per 100,000 is 1232.4. With a population of just under 62,000 people the total number of new cases in the past week was 764 an increase of 1% on the previous week. There are 1,612 active coronavirus cases, with 65 people in hospital, 14 of them in intensive care.

Kim Wilson, the health minister, said: “This is very sad news and I extend heartfelt condolences to the family and friends of the deceased during this difficult time.” She added: “This outbreak is serious and I am sad to see where we are today. This is heartbreaking. “More people are getting quite sick, more people are being hospitalised and more are dying.”

Doctors yesterday joined forces in an impassioned plea to the public to get vaccinated. The Bermuda Medical Doctors’ Association said their “hearts were breaking” at the human cost of the pandemic. There has been some hesitancy in getting vaccinated with around 67% of the population having been fully vaccinated. The rise in cases has come about since the end of July 2021. Until them during the months of June and July there were very few daily cases and the total new cases was in single figures. On 26th July the daily figure went from 6 to 36 and has been increasing daily ever since to this week where they have over 1600 active cases.

Unvaccinated travellers can quarantine at home for 14 days, starting from Sunday, the health minister said yesterday.

Kim Wilson told MPs that people who arrive on the island without immunisation will wear electronic monitoring devices and red wristbands. They will be expected to test for the coronavirus only on arrival in Bermuda and on Day 14.

Ms Wilson said that the two-week quarantine in a Government approved facility was introduced on June 20 with an end date of September 30. The policy later changed so that unimmunised travellers could “test out” and complete part of their quarantine at any accommodation. Ms Wilson explained that in the latest outbreak of Covid-19 “local transmission of the disease far outweighs the incidence of the disease among travellers”.

As so many of these small island nations rely so much on tourism we can but hope that they are able to get the rate of infections under control and start to lead a more normal life.

Until the next time Stay Safe.

Total Cases Worldwide – 232,728,390

Total Deaths Worldwide – 4,764,298

Total Recovered Worldwide – 209,369,824

Total Active Cases Worldwide – 18,594,268 (8.0 % of the total cases)

Total Closed Cases Worldwide – 214,134,122 

https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/

The Overseas Situation Report Friday 24 September 2021

by Mike Evans

“Truth is like the sun. You can shut it out for a long time. But it ain’t going away.”

– Author unknown

Throughout the pandemic there has been a lot written about the accuracy of figures given by countries, institutions and individuals from all across the world. Social Media has been accused of allowing fake news to infiltrate the real news and this in itself has led to a massive increase in people’s perception of what is real and what is not.

There are a number of websites which have been providing information regarding the statistics for the pandemic and on the whole these have been as accurate as they can be given the figures they are provided. They can only provide accurate information if the statistics they are supplied with are accurate and it is obvious as time moves on that not every country is being truthful with the situation in their respective countries. In this report I am relaying to you one such story which illustrates this issue perfectly.

Turkmenistan is a country in Central Asia bordered by the Caspian Sea and largely covered by the Karakum Desert. It’s known for archaeological ruins including those at Nisa and Merv, major stops along the ancient trade route the Silk Road. Ashgabat, the capital, was rebuilt in Soviet style in the mid-20th century and is filled with grand monuments honoring former president Saparmurat Niyazov. Turkmenistan is one of only a handful of countries, including North Korea, which says it has no coronavirus cases. But reports suggest it is experiencing its third and possibly strongest wave of Covid-19.

Here is one story that describes this issue perfectly and tragically for many in the country.

Sayahat Kurbanov was suffocating. He gasped for air as if he were running a marathon, the pain in his chest unbearable. He had all the symptoms of coronavirus. The problem was he was in Turkmenistan, where patients like him officially do not exist.When he called an ambulance last month the doctor told him he had pneumonia and should go to hospital urgently. Mr Kurbanov (not his real name) knew that the country’s doctors referred to Covid cases as pneumonia. On the way to the hospital Mr Kurbanov managed to call the clinic where he had done a Covid test a few days earlier. “It is positive,” he heard a quiet voice say. “What is positive?” he shouted, “is it Covid?” “Yes,” came the answer. Only later did he discover they never give you a piece of paper if you test positive in Turkmenistan.

The first hospital they went to refused to take him because it was full. “I nearly died on the way,” Mr Kurbanov said. “The lack of air… the virus progressed so quickly. I started hitting the window and shouted ‘Please stop, I can’t breathe’. They gave me oxygen but it didn’t help much.”

The next hospital also refused to admit him, this time because it was banned from taking in patients who were not registered in the capital, Ashgabat. “I started panicking. I asked the doctor, ‘What am I supposed to do? Die here?'” He called a doctor he knew and begged for help. After numerous phone calls and heated conversations he was eventually admitted. His condition did not change for five days.”I couldn’t inhale – it was as if everything inside me was glued. I had panic attacks since I couldn’t breathe. It was as if I had dived underwater and couldn’t surface.”He shouted for nurses to give him something to alleviate the pain. Getting into a hospital is not always enough to receive treatment in Turkmenistan, Mr Kurbanov says. Doctors routinely ignore patients and nurses don’t check on them unless someone high up calls the right people.

The hospital was also badly understaffed with a couple of nurses looking after more than 60 people. There were times when a cleaning lady administered injections, he said.

Nurses told him stories of patients dying in front of them due to lack of ventilators and oxygen. Having spent over $1500 on medicines and bribes Mr Kurbanov was eventually discharged after 10 days.

Foreign based Turkmen media are reporting on the third wave of infections but almost everyone inside the country are too scared to talk about it.The Turkmen.news website has identified at least 60 people who have died from Covid 19 since the start of the pandemic. Various media reports and independent sources indicate that Turkmenistan is being hit hard by the coronavirus pandemic. Yet Turkmen officials continue to say there have not been any incidents of COVID-19 in the country.

But the cases of two diplomats assigned to Turkmenistan suggest the virus is indeed there — though in both cases their governments remain quiet. Such silence helps allow Turkmen authorities to continue spouting the official line that the country is somehow unaffected by the global pandemic.

Guzide Uchkun is the widow of Kemal Uchkun, a Turkish diplomat who died in a hospital in Turkmenistan on July 7. She recently filed a lawsuit against Turkey’s ambassador to Turkmenistan, Togan Oral, and several other government officials for their failure to transport her husband from Turkmenistan to Turkey for proper medical treatment. Starting in January 2018, Kemal Uchkun was stationed at the Turkish Embassy in Turkmenistan as an adviser on religious affairs.

On June 27, 2020, Uchkun was admitted to a hospital. His symptoms were breathing problems, heavy coughing, and a fever, signs associated with the coronavirus. Doctors treated him for pneumonia.

Guzide Uchkun says Turkmen doctors treated her husband with antibiotics, which don’t work against viruses. Turkish doctors said the X-rays they received of Uchkun from Turkmenistan indicated there was a better than 90 percent chance he had COVID-19. Guzide’s lawyer, Ahmet Basci, told Azatlyk that the embalming of Uchkun’s body was done in Turkmenistan, so a subsequent autopsy in Turkey was unable to determine if the diplomat’s death was due to the coronavirus.

But Basci said Uchkun’s family showed the chest X-rays to other Turkish forensic experts after his death. Basci said those experts had no doubt that Uchkun had died of COVID-19 and that he probably would have survived if he had been brought back to Turkey.

“I pleaded [with Turkish authorities] to send a medical transport plane or any kind of plane to bring my husband back to Turkey,” Guzide told the Turkish newspaper Sozcu. “I filled out applications and provided all the necessary documents every day until his death.”

Turkmen officials did not give official permission for a Turkish plane to come to Ashgabat, which has not been accepting international flights since March, until after Uchkun died on July 7.

Publicly, Turkish authorities have still not criticized Turkmenistan’s reluctance to allow an ill diplomat to be evacuated home for treatment, although it seems cause for some outrage. Ankara has also not said anything that might question Turkmenistan’s claim of being free of the coronavirus.

Guzide Uchkun also plans to file a lawsuit against Turkmen authorities, charging them with negligence and obstruction.

Britain’s ambassador to Turkmenistan, Hugh Philpott, is known for promoting the culture of Central Asian countries where he has been stationed, sometimes through song.

Philpott performed a Tajik song when he was ambassador to Tajikistan and recently sang a Turkmen tune. On December 16, Philpott tweeted that he was “recuperating from a virus trending in the ‘physical world.” Philpott did not say where he was recuperating, but he has been in Turkmenistan since returning from a trip abroad in late September. The British government has not publicly commented on Philpott’s condition or where he contracted the virus.

The World Health Organization (WHO) has also not confirmed that the coronavirus is in Turkmenistan, despite making an official visit. The WHO sent a team to Turkmenistan in July after more than two months of delays caused, apparently, by Turkmen authorities’ procrastination in giving official permission.

The WHO team was guided around Turkmenistan and afterward could only say they had not seen any clear evidence of the coronavirus in Turkmenistan, though they did express concern at “reports of increased cases of acute respiratory disease or pneumonia of unknown cause” and advised “activating the critical public-health measures in Turkmenistan, as if COVID-19 was circulating.”

The team also recommended that “surveillance and testing systems are scaled up, and that samples are sent to WHO reference laboratories for confirmed testing.”

Eurasianet.org contacted the WHO about that and in December received a reply that “unfortunately, due to many travel restrictions currently in place, this has as yet not been possible.”

Given the Turkmen government’s penchant for exaggeration, if not outright lying, it is not surprising that officials there continue to cling to their narrative that the coronavirus has been prevented from entering Turkmenistan. It is somewhat surprising that international organizations and individual governments are not challenging this claim by the Turkmen government, especially considering the heavy impact it is having on the citizens of Turkmenistan.

Until the next time Stay Safe.

Total Cases Worldwide – 231,087,421

Total Deaths Worldwide – 4,735,968

Total Recovered Worldwide – 207,765,666

Total Active Cases Worldwide – 18,585,787  (8.0 % of the total cases)

Total Closed Cases Worldwide – 212,501,634 

https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/

Overseas Situation Report Tuesday 21 September 2021 

by Mike Evans

“As we are beginning to restart our world after being hit by a horrific global health crisis, our actions hold the key to a fast recovery for the entire humankind…”

– Abhijit Naskar

There have been a lot of recent changes to travel restrictions around Europe and as some countries relax their rules others tighten them and it can be a bit of a mindfield to find out the right answer. In this Overseas Report we are looking at what travel restrictions are in place within the Schengen area of the EU. Schengen refers to the EU passport-free zone that covers most of the European countries. It’s the largest free travel area in the world. The Schengen zone includes the 26 countries that have signed the Schengen agreement, which allows citizens of member countries to travel within the zone freely, without passing through passport and border control.

There are another 19 other countries that are not part of the Schengen Zone, yet they allow foreign citizens of other non-Schengen countries to enter and stay in their territories, only by showing a valid multiple-entry Schengen Visa.

Several European countries reintroduced temporary internal border control and extended the restriction due to Coronavirus concerns, terrorism attacks, and secondary movement, the European Commission has announced.

Coronavirus restrictions include Norway, whose measure will remain effective until October 7, and France, which was introduced from May 1 until October 31. These measures imposed by Norway and France apply to all of their internal borders

Denmark announced the border control due to Coronavirus risk on May 12, and the measure remains valid until November 11. However, the border control towards all internal borders is expected to be abolished soon. Although the reintroduction of travel border control must be the last alternative to be applied, the Schengen Borders Code (SBS) allows the Member States to reintroduce the measure in order to minimize threats of public policy or internal security. Norway’s border control is valid until November 9 and was introduced due to terrorist threats and secondary movements on May 10. The measure is applied to ports with ferry connections to Denmark, Germany, and Sweden.

Furthermore, Austria imposed the measure on May 12, which is directed to secondary movements, risk related to terrorists and organized crime, the situation at the external borders, and the land borders with Hungary and Slovenia. The measure will remain effective until November 11.

Germany has also extended the internal border restriction until November 11 due to secondary movements and the situation at the external borders. The restriction initially introduced on May 12 will apply to the land border with Austria. France’s restriction regarding internal borders will be extended until October 31 and is raised due to constant terrorist threats and secondary movements. Non-vaccinated and unrecovered travellers reaching Switzerland are required to present a negative test performed before arrival and another one, carried out four to seven days upon arriving in the country, starting from Monday, September 20, the country’s authorities have announced. The decision has been determined in a bid to halt the further spread of COVID-19 as the autumn season vacations are approaching.

Furthermore, regardless of the vaccination status, all travellers reaching Switzerland must complete SwissPLF, a Passenger Locator Form. The form allows the authorities to locate travellers residing in respective cantons and determine whether they have been tested on the fourth to seventh day upon arrival, as the law orders.

However, travellers administered one of the vaccines approved by the Swiss medical authorities, those who tested positive for the virus in the last 30 days, as well as the EU Digital COVID-19 Certificate holders are permitted to enter the country free of entry quarantine or testing requirements.

Travellers transiting through Switzerland, drivers transporting people or goods, cross-border commuters and people entering border areas are also exempted from testing requirements. Children under 16 are also excluded from the test requirement. On the other hand, since August 4, the Swiss authorities have imposed more stringent restrictions on travellers from India, Nepal and the United Kingdom due to the concerns of the virus variants in these areas. Moreover, all travellers reaching Switzerland from the EU/Schengen Area countries, and other third countries found in the EU’s list of epidemiologically safe countries, are permitted to enter the country. However, they need to present a valid vaccination or recovery certificate or be willing to undergo the double testing requirements.

Authorities in Slovakia have announced that starting from September 20, the border regime will be relaxed, and only police members will carry out checks, the country’s Ministry of the Interior has announced. Anyway, travellers who have been fully vaccinated and can prove their vaccination status by showing valid evidence are permitted to enter Slovakia without being subject to entry restrictions.

Still, authorities in Slovakia previously announced that all persons who have not entirely finished their immunization process would have to undergo a five-day mandatory quarantine rule upon their arrival.

Due to the current Coronavirus situation, authorities in Slovakia have placed other countries into different categories, taking into account their epidemiological situation, imposing additional requirements for travellers who plan to enter the Central European territory from countries that have recently been profoundly affected by the virus.

In this regard, Slovakia’s Ministry of the Interior has clarified that the riskiness of individual districts regarding the COVID-19 situation will be estimated in a new way.

“Less weight should be given to those infected among children under 18 years of age. This follows from the third update of the Covid Vending Machine, which was approved by the government on Thursday, September 16, 2021,” the statement reads.

The Ministry of Health has stressed that the new calculation methodology should be more focused on other factors that lead to the increase in the number of COVID-19 infections.

Two of the countries whose residents have faced some of the harshest travel restrictions since the beginning of 2021 – Brazil and South Africa – have finally been removed from Germany’s list of high-risk areas. In an announcement of the Robert Koch Institute, which is the German federal government agency and research institute, responsible for disease control and prevention located in Berlin and Wernigerode, the same has noted that Brazil and South Africa have been removed from the high-risk list, alongside Bangladesh, Botswana, Eswatini, India, Ireland’ the West Region, Lesotho, Malawi, Nepal, Portugal’s Algarve region, Zambia, Zimbabwe, and Cyprus.

The decision means that travellers from these countries reaching Germany are no longer subject to strict entry requirements, in particular those who haven’t been vaccinated against COVID-19 with one of the vaccines accepted as proof of immunity, as well as those who haven’t recovered from the virus in the last 180 days. Vaccinated and recovered travellers from these countries no longer need to have a purpose of entry, as they can travel to Germany even for tourism purposes now.

Finally and further afield, The United States administration has finally taken concrete steps towards the removal of the entry ban on travellers who visited the United Kingdom, Ireland, the 26 Schengen Area countries, China, India, South Africa, Iran and Brazil, after the same have been banned from entering the country for over a year now.

The decision was announced by the White House on Monday, September 20, noting that air travellers from the countries listed above, including the EU countries and the UK, will be permitted to enter the US in November if they are vaccinated. The same travellers will also be exempt from the requirement of quarantine.

Children who aren’t eligible to get the vaccine yet will be exempt from the requirement to be vaccinated.

The decision does not cover land travel from Canada and Mexico.While the Coordinator did not specify the exact date when the ban would be removed, he noted that this would happen in early November. The US has been keeping their borders closed for travellers who have been in the Schengen Area countries, Ireland, the United Kingdom, Brazil, China, India, Iran and South Africa in the past 14 days, for almost a year and a half.

The ban has been criticized in particular in the past months, including by the European Commission Vice President Margaritis Schinas, who cancelled his trip to the US last month in protest against the entry ban imposed on Europeans, calling it “unfair”.

As the epidemic continues we shall endeavour to bring you the latest and accurate news on travelling overseas.

Until the next time stay safe.

Total Cases Worldwide – 229,847,462

Total Deaths Worldwide – 4,713,920

Total Recovered Worldwide – 205,526,020

Total Active Cases Worldwide – 18,607,522 (8.1 % of the total cases)

Total Closed Cases Worldwide – 211,239,940

https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/

The Overseas Situation Report Friday 17 September 2021

by Mike Evans

“Persistence makes all the difference between success and failure. If you keep at it, every obstacle must give in.” 

–  Dr. Moses Simuyemba

In this report we are looking at the trends of Covid 19 infections around the world, in a week where the drop in new infections compared to last week was 8% and was less than 4 million new cases worldwide.

However, whilst most regions have seen drops, many individual countries are seeing a rise again in new cases. To start with let’s look at Europe, where overall the drop in new cases in the past week has been 7%. Looking closer at this figure, there is a definite East West divide in so far as those countries in the Eastern side of Europe are seeing a surge in new cases whereas those in the west are seeing a drop.

In the East of Europe we are seeing a big increase in cases from a number of countries. Of the 47 countries listed by Worldometer.info the top ten countries with the highest increase in the past week all with the exception of Andorra are in the Eastern side of Europe. There is only one country in this region, Northern Macedonia which has shown a drop in cases in the past 7 days. In terms of actual numbers none of them are close to the figure the UK has reported in the last week of 219,446, although this is a drop of 18% on the previous week. The Eastern country with the highest number of new infections is Russia at 129,002 but again this is a drop compared to the previous seven days. Serbia has seen a rise of 48% in new infections to report a figure of 43,984 and Ukraine reported a 51% increase to 22,520.

Compare this with the western side of Europe and we see a drop in infections in many countries. In the week Portugal has seen a drop of 32% in new cases, while our nearest neighbour, Spain has seen a drop even bigger of 34%. With France, Italy, Greece all showing drops in infections it does seem to be that those countries who have been able to vaccinate a higher proportion of their citizens are winning the fight against the virus. A look at Our World in Data shows that in the Ukraine only 14% of their citizens have had 1 vaccination and in Serbia this figure is 44% whereas in Portugal the figure is 87% and in Spain it is 80%.

Whilst overall Europe has seen a drop in new infections, the death rates in the past week have gone up by 3% from 10,900 to 11,264. Russia with 5,459,this is a drop of 2% on the previous seven days, but the UK with 973, a rise on the week of 4%, followed by France with 570 and Spain with 491, both showing a fall of 16% and 27% respectively. Whilst data showing whether these deaths were in vaccinated or non vaccinated people is not available it is worth remembering that the UK, France and Spain have very high rates of vaccinations compared to the rest of Europe.

In pure percentage increases across the Eastern European area we see that in the past week, Germany saw a 77% increase in deaths, Romania, 90% increase, Serbia 36% and Ukraine a 55% increase in deaths.

Across the Atlantic in the North America region we saw a stabilizing trend in the past week with new infections dropping by just 0.2%. The USA has the bulk of the cases with 1,070,235, an increase in the past week of just under 1%. It is worth remembering that in the whole of the region the total number of new cases was 1,303,600 so you can see what a huge part of this is from the USA.

In Canada they saw a rise in the week of 15% compared to the previous week with a total of 30,110 new cases across the country. Whilst Mexico has seen a drop in cases by 18% in the past week there are worrying concerns that the virus is taking a hold in some parts of  the caribbean. The past week has seen a more than 300% increase in cases in St Vincent and the Grenadines, a 73% increase in Bermuda, 32% in the Bahamas, 30% increase in St Kitts & Nevis and a 21% increase in Barbados. The concern is that as the tourist winter holiday season starts these countries who rely on tourism are going to be affected in not just health concerns but in economic concerns as well.

Deaths have risen across the North America region in the past week by 8% with notable rises from both the USA and Canada of 22% and 38% respectively. In the Caribbean region ten countries have all seen an increase in deaths in the past week compared to the previous seven days. In total across the region in the past week saw 17,828 deaths compared to 16,550 in the previous week.

In Asia the trend over the past week has been a steady downward spiral of new infections. Across the whole region there has been a drop of 13% in new reported cases and a 16% drop in deaths in the past week compared to the previous seven days. Leading the way with the reduction in cases is Japan where they saw a 43% reduction in the week, followed by Azerbaijan and Indonesia with reductions of 39% and 35% respectively. India by sheer numbers continues to have the highest number of new cases in the week at 207.017 but this is a 27% reduction compared to the previous week.

Countries where infections are on the rise in the past week include, The Philippines with a 6% rise, Singapore, 144% increase, Cambodia, 32% and Israel with a 15% increase.

Whilst the region has seen a significant drop in deaths in the past week, there are some countries where this trend is not happening. Malaysia saw an increase of 28% in the past week, as did Japan at 16%, Mongolia at 114% and Israel at 9%.

This after Israel’s vaccination rollout that began last December was among the fastest in the world and brought infections to a trickle by June, when all pandemic restrictions were lifted. But when cases began surging again through the summer, health experts confronted a key question, said Gabi Barbash, a former health ministry director general now with the Weizmann Institute of Science.

Had the surge been caused by the PfizerBioNTech vaccine waning effectiveness five months after the second jab, or, was the Delta variant’s ability to break through vaccine protection to blame? “When the fourth wave erupted, we were not sure which was the more dominant factor,” Barbash told AFP. But weeks after the third jab rollout began, the severe case count — which shot up from more than 70 in late July to 600 by mid-August — has stabilised, currently standing below 700. Infections also remain very low along the triple jabbed.

Finally to Africa where we see that in the past week new cases has dropped by 24% compared to the previous week. Of the 54 countries that make up this region in the past week 30 of those have shown an increase in cases. Whilst most of these increases are relatively small it is still the more populated countries that lead the table in actual infections. There were a total of 117,251 new cases recorded in the past week across the region and South Africa accounted for 32,428 and Morocco for 17,529. Both countries showed a drop in new cases by 35 and 34% respectively.

Of the more populous countries Egypt had an increase of 36% in new infections compared to the previous week, with Angola and Madagascar also showing rises of 31 and 27% respectively.

With regards to deaths in the region, the drop across the region saw 27 countries  with lower deaths in the past week although this was not replicated in certain countries. Ethiopia saw a 49% increase in the week, Kenya saw a 31% increase and Egypt saw a 4% increase.

In closing this report it is obvious that not all parts of the world are at the same stage of combatting the virus and we have a long way to go before we can truely say that we have beaten it!

Until the next time Stay Safe.

Total Cases Worldwide – 227,374,381

Total Deaths Worldwide – 4,675,976

Total Recovered Worldwide – 204,092,822

Total Active Cases Worldwide – 18,605,583 (8.2 % of the total cases)

Total Closed Cases Worldwide – 208,768,798

https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/

Information and resources:

https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/weekly-trends/#countries

https://ourworldindata.org/covid-vaccinations