More than 300 million corona cases worldwide since pandemic began

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Worldwide, the number of Corona infections has surpassed 300 million since the Pandemic began. A total of 300,042,439 cases had been reported around the globe by Friday afternoon, according to a calculation by the AFP news agency based on government data. Since the discovery of the highly contagious Omicron variant in November, many countries have reported record infection numbers. However, that has not yet led to a corresponding increase in deaths.

Over the past seven days, nearly 13.6 million cases of infection have been registered worldwide as of Friday afternoon (4:45 p.m. CET), a massive 64 percent increase from the previous week. Thus, in the past seven days, an average of more than 1.9 million people per day were infected with the coronavirus. The previous record dates back to spring 2021, when an average of nearly 817,000 new infections were reported daily between April 23 and 29.

The countries with the highest infection rates per 100,000 population worldwide are all in Europe: led by Cyprus with a seven-day incidence of 3468, followed by Ireland with 2840 new corona infections per 100,000 population, Greece (2415), Montenegro (2371), Denmark (2362), and France (2137). The first non-European country to come in twelfth place is Australia, with an incidence of 1261.

At the same time, an average of 6172 deaths per day were recorded worldwide in the past seven days, which is three percent less than in the previous week. The peak had been in January 2021, with an average of 14,803 corona deaths per day. That appears to confirm findings from studies that while Omicron is more contagious than previous variants, disease progression is less severe.

The figures compiled by AFP are based on daily reports from national health authorities. However, a significant proportion of less severe or asymptomatic cases remain undetected despite more intensive testing in many countries. In addition, testing strategies vary from country to country.