MOSCOW, February 15./TASS/: The World Health Organization reported 300,500 new coronavirus cases across the globe in the past 24 hours, which is the lowest figure in the past four months. The previous record low of 291,200 COVID-19 cases was recorded on October 7, 2020.
Europe once again is reporting the largest amount of new cases, accounting for more than half of the world’s new daily infections, with 122,500 incidences. North and South America saw 115,600 new cases.
TASS has set out to weigh the pace of the decline in various countries.
The Western Hemisphere
The Americas remain the epicenter of the coronavirus global outbreak with over 48.1 million people having been infected since the pandemic started, which is almost 45% of the world’s coronavirus cases (108.8 million).
The US is divulging fewer than 100,000 daily coronavirus cases, the same figures that it saw at the start of November. In January, up to 250,000 new infections were recorded daily in the United States, while on January 2, a record high of 300,000 new cases was set.
Other countries in the Western Hemisphere, having over one million coronavirus cases overall, are also seeing a decline in infection rates. Brazil had about 312,000 new coronavirus cases in the past week, which was almost 10,000 fewer than during the previous seven days. Argentina reports coronavirus numbers on par with those two months ago, while in Colombia they have dropped to October’s levels. In Mexico, the pace of the infection has halved when compared to January’s record highs of over 20,000 cases a day.
Peru is the only exception here, since the South American country has been experiencing a third wave of the infection since mid-January. On Sunday, the country revealed almost 12,000 new coronavirus cases, the second biggest increase since the start of the pandemic. Strict lockdown measures were put back in place in nine regions of Peru due to a surge in COVID-19 cases.
Europe
Europe is the second biggest hotbed of the coronavirus infection with 36.5 million cases overall. However, most of the hardest hit European countries have been seeing a slower pace of its spread.
The UK reported about 11,000 new cases in the past day, the lowest figure since October 2.
France has divulged 16,000-18,000 daily infections over the past few days, indicating a two-thirds drop from the peak of October-November. The incidence rate in Italy and Germany sank to figures seen in the first half of October, after peaking at the end of 2020 and the start of this year. The same situation exists in Poland and Ukraine after they had passed their highs in November 2020.
The Czech Republic’s numbers have halved when compared to January’s maximum. However, the situation there is still tense with 8,000 to 9,000 new cases uncovered daily.
After January’s record high numbers, the incidence rate in Spain has dropped to 16,000-18,000 new cases, which is similar to the levels seen in late December.
Asia
Despite its size and population density, Asia has disclosed that it has half as many cases as in Europe and 2.5 times less than in America.
India remains the hardest hit country on the Asian continent, but the number of daily cases has dropped to 10,000 or 11,000, corresponding to June’s figures and is nearly 90% less than the record-high numbers of September.
Turkey reports a 75-80-percent drop in daily cases from the December outbreak.
Iran, however, has been seeing a slight increase since the start of February with 6,500 to 7,500 new cases reported daily. However, this is half as many as the country had in November and early in December.
In Indonesia, the number of coronavirus cases kept mounting until the end of January, after which they began to diminish down to 10,000 new cases daily.
Meanwhile, since mid-January, the United Arab Emirates has seen the disease rate hold at a record-high level of over 3,000 new infections.
In late December 2019, Chinese officials informed the World Health Organization (WHO) about the outbreak of a previously unknown pneumonia in the city of Wuhan, in central China. Since then, cases of the novel coronavirus - named COVID-19 by the WHO - have been reported in every corner of the globe. On March 11, 2020, the WHO declared the coronavirus outbreak a pandemic.
