COVID-19 update

At press time, active COVID-19 infections had been confirmed in 192 countries and territories, with more than 149.8 million cases and, resulting from those, more than 3.1 million deaths.

Numbers of new cases of COVID-19 were rising in nearly every country in the world. During the week of April 11-17, there were 5.2 million confirmed cases worldwide, the most recorded during a one-week period. The number of deaths has also been rising worldwide but at a much slower rate than infections.

India and Brazil, in particular, have seen cases of COVID rise dramatically, with India identifying 379,257 new cases on April 28, a single-day world record. In the two weeks leading to press time, India’s daily average of new cases was over 300,000, while Brazil was averaging about 56,000 new cases a day. Also in South America, there were sharp upticks in new cases in Argentina and Colombia, both averaging about 20,000 new cases per day.

Aside from India, Turkey had the highest 2-week average in Asia, at about 52,000 a day, causing the country to go into full lockdown for the first time.

France led Europe, with an average of more than 30,000 new cases a day, with Germany, Italy, Poland and Ukraine each averaging more than 10,000.

Only three countries in Africa — Tunisia, South Africa and Egypt — were reported averaging more than 1,000 cases a day.

In Oceania, Papua New Guinea had the highest 2-week average at only about 120 new cases a day, with many Oceania countries reporting zero cases over those two weeks.