New daily Covid-19 cases hit the all-time high on Monday, according to Johns Hopkins University and Our World in Data, but the death toll has not followed the same upward trajectory so far.
The number of newly confirmed cases has exceeded 1.44 million, as dozens of countries around the world are faced with the highly contagious Omicron variant. The only time more cases were reported was in December last year, when Turkey suddenly added a large number of earlier positive samples, having only registered symptomatic patients for months, according to Bloomberg.
The seven-day moving average was at a record high yesterday, an indicator that allows scientists to monitor the evolution of epidemiological data without being affected by distortions that can cause days of gatherings, such as Christmas Eve.
Specifically, on Monday, the seven-day average exceeded 840,000 cases, while a week earlier it had reached 686,000 and at the beginning of December it barely exceeded 578,000.
All this confirms the predictions that the Omicron wave will be accompanied by a large dispersion and a large number of cases. Countries such as the United Kingdom and France have a record number of cases in recent days, while in the United States the cases have more than tripled since December 1, approaching the record dating back to the beginning of the year, according to Our World in Data. In China, which remains largely closed to the rest of the world in terms of travel, local cases rose for a fourth straight day on Monday, according to Reuters.
Despite the widespread spread of the coronavirus, however, the number of deaths attributed to Covid-19 has not increased and remains lower compared to previous pandemic waves.
A bright spot
While the scientific community estimates that Omicron is growing rapidly, the predominant variation in Europe and the United States, since mid-October the 7-day moving average worldwide has been around 7,000 losses per day, with no significant fluctuations.
From October 1 until yesterday, for almost three months, the 7-day moving average of global deaths exceeded 8,000 on December 5 alone, while since then it has been moving almost continuously downwards, reaching 6.43 thousand yesterday – a number that corresponds to 0, 82 losses per million.
In general, the increase in deaths is a small time difference from the increase in cases, but the gap compared to previous waves is obvious for the time being. In April, when the Delta variant spread to many countries, the seven-day average death rate ranged between 11,000 and 13,000 per day. During the wave of last winter, ie in December 2020 and January 2021, it has even exceeded 14,000 losses.
Recent studies in South Africa and the United Kingdom indicate that the Omicron variant may be less morbid compared to the Delta, leading to fewer cases requiring hospitalization. Nevertheless, governments around the world have made it clear that there is no room for complacency, as the large number of cases could ultimately lead to a burden on national health systems.
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