Coronavirus Watch

Global Statistics

More than 60, 6 million cases of the virus have been reported globally and new deaths recorded are now over 1,42 million. An analysis of the Reuters data showed the rate of new infections picking up globally. It took just 17 days to go from 50 million cases to 60 million, compared with the 21 days it took to go from 40 million to 50 million.

In Europe, 1 million new cases were recorded over just five days, for a total of more than 16 million cases, including 365 000 deaths. The second largest global contributor to new cases and deaths is the Americas region, with 1.6 million new cases — an increase of 11% on the previous week — and 22,005 new deaths, up 15% on the previous week, according to WHO. The United States reported more than 2,000 deaths from Covid-19, according to data from Johns Hopkins University.  The country reported 2,011 new deaths yesterday.   This is the 22nd day that the US has ever added more than 2,000 new deaths. US had not seen new death numbers this high since May. 

On Tuesday, the United States added 172,935 new Covid-19 cases, according to JHU. Tuesdays total was the 5th highest single day of the pandemic for new cases, per JHU data. For 22 consecutive days, the US has posted over 100,000 new coronavirus cases per day. The US is now averages 174,225 new cases per day. Three states reported their highest single day of new cases on Tuesday, per JHU data: California, Maine and Nevada.

Brazil last week joined the United States and India as the only countries to have recorded more than 6 million infections. With almost 170 000 confirmed fatalities, Brazil has the world’s second-highest death toll.

While India remains the second-worst affected country in the world with almost 9.2 million cases, it has continued to report a slowdown in new cases in recent weeks.

As the global acceleration in Covid-19 cases slowed down over the past week — with around four million new cases reported — death rates continue to increase, with over 67,000 new deaths reported across the world, the World Health Organization reported on Tuesday. Europe is still the largest contributor to those cases and deaths. The WHO said on Tuesday that the data indicates “that the re-introduction of stricter public health and social measures in a number of countries over the last few weeks is beginning to slow down transmission.”

Europe accounted for 44% of global new cases and 49% of global deaths (32,684 new deaths. The number of new cases reported in Europe declined by 6% to 1.77 million, after a decline of 10% in the previous week.

Italy reported the highest number (235,979) of new cases in Europe, and the third-highest globally – but still saw a slight decline of 3%. The number of new deaths in Italy increased by 26% to 4578 new deaths.

In the UK, there’s been a 13% decrease of new cases (149,027) from last week, while the number of new deaths remained similar. This decrease in new cases in the UK is the first weekly decline since late August.

Germany will extend its partial nationwide lockdown until at least Dec. 20 or potentially stretch it until January, keeping existing curbs in place as a way to slow the spread of coronavirus, German Chancellor Angela Merkel announced at a news conference on Wednesday. The partial nationwide lockdown means the German government requires restaurants and bars to remain closed, people to avoid travel, to keep their contacts to an absolute minimum and to limit public meetings to members of only two households. Schools and shops have remained open. Merkel also announced that mask-wearing is now obligatory in all pedestrian high-traffic areas and city centers.

The Latin American region has the highest number of reported deaths in the world, representing about 21% of all global cases and over 31% of all global deaths reported.

In Africa, while cases numbers remain relatively low, the continent reported the highest increase in new cases (15%) and deaths (30%) this week, according to the WHO’s COVID-19 weekly report. The highest new case and death counts were reported in South Africa, Algeria and Kenya.

In response to the increasing cases of Covid -19 pandemic, different African organisations recently launched AfricaMaskWeek to sustain and increase mask wearing as a protective measure among the populations in Africa. Over 55 partner organizations are currently working together in implementing the #AfricaMaskWeek initiative to help mobilize support and action for increased mask-wearing as an essential measure to prevent COVID-19 infection and ultimately stop the spread of the COVID-19 at the community level in African countries.

South Africa recorded 3 250 new coronavirus cases, taking the total number of cases to date to 775 502. The country has also recorded 118 new COVID-19 related fatalities yesterday. This brings the total number of deaths to 21 201.

Zimbabwe recorded 110 new cases of the virus to being the total to 9,508. No new death was recorded yesterday. 39 new cases were reported to have recovered, hence the total recoveries are now at 8336 and the national recovery rate is 87,7%.

Metal Prices Asia/Europe/NY market

25/11/2020

 (Source: Kitco)