Thread by @kakape

I don’t really remember how we marked the beginning of a new week in pre-pandemic times, but these days we celebrate “good news on vaccines” Mondays, followed by “not so good news on global #covid19" Tuesdays.
That’s to say: the WHO’s weekly sitrep is up. Quick thread

Big picture:

3,935,330 new cases and
69,916 new deaths
were reported to @WHO last week.
That means deaths have risen for a sixth week (+3%), but cases are down 4% from last week.

It is a huge amount of death and disease from one little pathogen.

@WHO Number of new #covid19 cases finally going down after two months of increases may sound great.
The problem is that the data includes the craziness of US Thanksgiving numbers.
US case number is basically the same as last week, when it should probably be a lot higher.

@WHO With the “real” #covid19 numbers from the US the world would probably have seen an increase again in #covid19 case numbers.
So not as good as it seems.
But this also means that if there is an extra steep increase in the case numbers next week that is not as bad as it seems.

@WHO The global decline is driven by a decrease in Europe (now in its 3rd week).
But: "Despite this reduction, the Region still accounts for 40% of new global cases and 50% of new global deaths as almost half of the countries within the region continue to show an increasing trend.”

@WHO Deaths are still increasing though in Europe (not surprising given time lag between infection and death).
Last week it was over 35,000, bringing the total in Europe to 412,000.
That means that by Christmas, Europe will probably have lost half a million people to #covid19.

@WHO The other four WHO regions account for about 75% of the world's population.
They accounted for less than 20% of last week’s #covid19 cases and deaths.