International policy updates

Global

 

  • In the past seven days, seven countries — Argentina, Brazil, Britain, France, India, Russia and the U.S have each reported at least 100,000 new cases of the coronavirus, pushing total cases worldwide to more than 40 million. Many countries are seeing numbers much higher than they were at the height of the pandemic, but Brazil and India are now reporting fewer deaths from the virus (around 500 a day) which is half of what it was two months ago.
  • A new study published in Nature Medicine looked at the potential acceptance of a Covid-19 vaccine in 19 countries. Respondents in China gave the highest proportion of positive responses (90 percent), while Russians gave the lowest (55 percent.) 41% of respondents in France would be hesitant to take a vaccine.

Respondents who said that they trusted their government were more likely to accept a vaccine than those who said that they did not. Overall, 71.5 percent of respondents said they would be very or somewhat likely to take a vaccine.

 

Europe

 

North America

 

 

South America

 

  • Brazil reaches a deal with Sinovac Biotech to produce the CoronaVac vaccine, with 46 million doses to be administered starting in January.
  • Both of the 911 emergency call centres in Puerto Rico were shut down after two employees tested positive for COVID-19.

 

Asia

Russia

Middle East

 

 

 

International COVID-19 analysis

 

Below is the latest international comparison of COVID-19 data using WHO published figures. As mentioned before, country to country comparison has some limitations because of the variation in approach, data collection and testing.

 

Data from 22/10/2020:

 

  • Worldwide, there have now been 41,104,946 confirmed cases and 1,128,325 COVID-19 deaths, an increase of 6.9% for cases (2,669,063 more cases) and 3.6% for deaths (38,841 more) since last week. This suggest that worldwide cases and deaths continue to rise at a steady rate.
  • The number of UK cases (789,233) accounts for 1.9% of world cases, while the number of UK deaths accounts for 3.9% of world deaths (44,158). The UK has moved from rank 12 in terms of cases to 11 this week and remains the country with the highest death toll in Europe. Globally, the UK has the fifth highest number of deaths.
  • Cases in Europe continue to rise. Cases in the UK increased by 20.6% (up from 20.3% last week, 134,585 more cases). France also continues to experience a significant rise in cases as cases increase by 23.6% since last week (up from 19.8% last week, 176,742 more cases). France has now moved up the ranks to 8th in terms of cases. Spain witnessed an 9.2% increase in cases in the past week (up from 8.6% last week, 84,728 more cases) and moved to 6th in the world in terms of cases. Other European countries that have experienced a significant increase in cases this week include Czech Republic (+50%, 69,625 more cases), Poland (+42.9%, 60,775 more cases), Netherlands (+29%, 56,908 more cases, Belgium (+21.7%, 45,106 more cases), ), Italy (+20.6%, 76,849 more cases), and Germany (+15.9%, 50,826 more cases).
  • The USA remains the country with the most cases and deaths in the world, accounting for 19.9% of world cases (8,184,788 cases) and 19.5% of total deaths (219,497 deaths).India remains the country with the second highest number of cases in the world. This week, cases in India increased by 5.5% to 7,706,946 (down from 6.9% last week but 399,849  more cases) and deaths increased by 4.8% to 116,616.
  • Cases in Latin America continue to rise. Argentina witnessed a 11.4% increase this week, bringing their total number of cases to 1,021,397 . Argentina is now ranked 5th globally for total cases (up from 6th last week), while Brazil remains the country with the third highest number of reported cases (5,273,954 cases) and the second highest number of deaths (154,837 deaths).
  • In Africa, South Africa remains the worst affected country in the continent with 708,359  cases and 18,741 deaths.
  • Currently, England has 13 times more cases than Scotland (52,615 cases), 17 times more cases than Wales (39,491 cases) and 22 more cases than Northern Ireland (31,034 cases).

 

 

 

Cases

% change since last week

Deaths

% change since last week

Death rate

1

USA

                         8,184,788

5.3%

                            219,497

2.4%

2.7%

2

India

                         7,706,946

5.5%

                            116,616

4.8%

1.5%

3

Brazil

                         5,273,954

3.1%

                            154,837

2.5%

2.9%

4

Russia

                         1,463,306

8.1%

                              25,242

7.5%

1.7%

5

Argentina

                         1,021,397

11.4%

                              27,175

10.6%

2.7%

6

Spain

                         1,005,295

9.2%

                              34,366

1.7%

3.4%

7

Colombia

                            974,139

5.4%

                              29,272

4.0%

3.0%

8

France

                            927,193

23.6%

                              33,766

3.0%

3.6%

9

Peru

                            874,118

2.4%

                              33,875

1.4%

3.9%

10

Mexico

                            860,714

4.3%

                              86,893

2.9%

10.1%

11

UK

                            789,233

20.6%

                              44,158

2.3%

5.6%

12

South Africa

                            708,359

1.7%

                              18,741

3.3%

2.6%

13

Iran

                            545,286

6.2%

                              31,346

6.8%

5.7%

14

Chile

                            495,637

2.1%

                              13,719

2.3%

2.8%