COVID-19 update

At press time, COVID-19 infections had been confirmed in 189 countries and territories to date, with more than 44 million cases and, resulting from those, more than 1.17 million deaths.

On Oct. 29, the Marshall Islands reported the first cases of COVID detected in that country. The infections were not the result of community transmission; they were detected in two workers at a US military base who were in quarantine after arriving from Hawaii.

With daily cases having reached record levels in some European countries, new restrictions have been put into place. France and Czechia went into a national lockdown, while Spain placed limits on shops and restaurants until at least April 2021. Other countries, such as Italy, were imposing new restrictions on a month-to-month basis.

Though the numbers of cases of COVID-19 were rising around the world, the case-fatality ratio (CFR) was dropping thanks to a better understanding of treatment. However, the CFR was still over 10% for people 80 and older and over 2% for those 60 to 79 years old, though under 1% for people 59 and under.