Covid-19 lethality worldwide decreases by 20% in one week

The number of coronavirus infections worldwide has decreased by 11% during the period of February 15-21, while the number of fatalities has decreased by 20% compared to the previous week.

A decrease in incidence has been occurring for six weeks in a row, according to the World Health Organization's (WHO) weekly epidemiological update published in Geneva on Wednesday.

"The number of global new cases reported continues to fall for the sixth consecutive week, with 2.4 million new cases last week, an 11% decline compared to the previous week," the WHO stated. Over the past week, 2,457,026 infections have been registered with 66,359 fatalities. As of February 21, there have been 110,763,898 cases of the infection worldwide with 2,455,331 fatalities.

The decline in incidence was particularly noticeable in North and South America (by 19%), the Western Pacific (by 9%), Europe (by 7%) and the Eastern Mediterranean region (by 7%). Lethality in these regions has also dropped – by 23%, 6%, 19% and 3%, respectively. The decline in mortality has also been registered in Africa (by 20%) and South-East Asia (by 6%).

In North and South America over the past seven days more than 1.06 mln people have been infected and over 34,000 died. In Europe, over 939,000 new cases of the infection have been registered with more than 24,000 fatalities. In the Eastern Mediterranean region, doctors have detected over 181,000 infections with more than 2,400 fatalities.

In the US, the number of infections has increased over a week by more than 480,000. Brazil is in the second place (over 316,000 new cases), followed by France (over 131,000), Russia (more than 92,000), India (over 86,000), Italy (more than 84,000), the UK (over 78,000), the Czech Republic (more than 65,000), Indonesia (over 60,000), Iran (more than 55,000).