International policy updates

Europe

• Welcome to Germany: Starting Saturday, coronavirus tests will be required for citizens, residents and travelers arriving from countries with large outbreaks. This policy change follows the news that new infections topped 1,000 on Wednesday. Officials are concerned not only by the rising numbers, but also by how widespread the new cases are, given they are not localised to any one area.

• Sweden’s chief epidemiologist Anders Tegnell does not want to let go of the limit of a maximum of 50 people per social gathering.

Africa

• A million people across Africa have now been confirmed to have had the new coronavirus, as health experts warn the peak of the pandemic has yet to hit the continent.

• South Africa, which accounts for more than half of the continent's registered cases, is the worst-affected African nation and the fifth worst-hit globally. Egypt is in second place with 94,000 confirmed infections, followed by Nigeria, Ghana, Algeria, Morocco and Kenya.

• South African President Cyril Ramaphosa has set up a ministerial committee to investigate alleged corruption in state tenders in the fight against the coronavirus.

North America

• Mayor Eric Garcetti has authorized the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power to cut off utility service to properties whose occupants are caught violating COVID-19 health orders.

South America

• As of August 5, the Argentinian health ministry reported a testing rate of 17,129 per 100,000 inhabitants. 

• In Paraguay, Alto Paraná’s increase in cases means it has become the country’s hotspot, with 40 percent of all confirmed cases and a third of the country’s COVID-19 deaths as of August 3, the government announced it would begin issuing money transfers worth roughly $72 to over 28,000 low-income inhabitants across the department’s 22 districts to provide economic relief.

Asia

• President Rodrigo Duterte of the Philippines ordered Manila and its suburbs to re-enter lockdown for two weeks after 5,032 new cases were reported.

• India’s Accredited Social Health Activists (ASHA’s) have been at the forefront of contact tracing in the country. However this important workforce are now considering going on strike, wanting to draw attention to poor working conditions, including a lack of PPE and low pay (2000rp per month, or around $27)

Middle East

• Government data leaked to the BBC suggests Iran is concealing the true toll of the virus. Nearly 42,000 people there have died, the data shows, which is three times as many as the publicly announced total.

• Following the deadly and devastating blast in Beirut, authorities warn this could lead to a ‘perfect storm’ as the city’s main hospitals have been destroyed

• The holy Shi'ite city of Kerbala, which used to host pilgrims from all around the world, is now quarantining dozens of COVID-19 patients in apartment buildings owned by Imam Hussein shrine, one of Iraq's most powerful religious authorities.

Australia

• Despite a lockdown that began a month ago, officials in Melbourne announced stricter measures to stem an outbreak. For six weeks, residents will be under curfew from 8 p.m. to 5 a.m., with exemptions for work or giving and receiving care.

International data

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 06/08/2020:

• Worldwide, there have now been 18,613,923 confirmed cases and 702,640 deaths. In this week alone, there were an additional 1,793,884 cases (an increase of 10.7%) and 40,515 more deaths (an increase of 6.1%). This suggests that worldwide cases continue to increase at a steady rate, with a number of countries across several continents in the middle of uncontained outbreaks.

• The number of UK cases (307,188) accounts for 1.7% of the global total, while the number of UK deaths (46,364 deaths) makes up 6.6% of the global total. The UK is now ranked 11^th globally in terms of number of cases, but remains the country with the highest death toll in Europe (and fourth highest in the world - Mexico has now jumped to third).

• The USA continues to be the country with the most cases and deaths in the world, accounting for 25.4% of world cases (4,728,239 cases) and 22.2% of total deaths (156,050 deaths).

• Latin America continues to be a hotspot where cases and deaths continue to rise. Cases in South America now account for almost a quarter of all the world’s cases (24%) and deaths from coronavirus in the continent account for 26% of all the world’s coronavirus deaths. Colombia becomes another South American country hit badly by the virus where cases increased by 25% in the past week to 334,979 (67,594 more cases). Brazil continues to be the worst affected in South America with the second highest number of cases in the world (2,801,921) and deaths (95,819) in the world.

• Cases and deaths in Asia continue to rise. Cases in India increased by 24% to 1,964,536 (380,744 more cases) and the number of deaths increased by 16% to 40,699 in the past week (5,731 more deaths).

• South Africa also continues to be affected by the virus with a 12% rise in cases to 529,877 (58,754 more cases) and a 24% increase in the number of deaths (9,298 total deaths, 1,801 more deaths).  

• Currently, England has 14 times more cases than Scotland (18,847 cases), 15 times more cases than Wales (7,389 cases) and 44 times more cases than Northern Ireland (6,049 cases) (PHE data).