Paris - The Covid-19 pandemic continued to pick up speed this week in Europe, mainly in the East of the continent, but also its decline in other regions of the world.

Here is the global state of play based on an AFP database.

- Five percent spike -

The number of new daily cases globally increased for a second week in a row, by five percent, to 432,100, according to an AFP tally to Thursday.

However, the confirmed cases only reflect a fraction of the actual number of infections, with varying accounting practices and levels of testing in different countries.

Number of new Covid-19 cases over the past 7 days (as of October 28)

- Deterioration in Europe -

The global increase was largely down to Europe with a 14 percent increase in the number of new recorded daily cases over the week.

The situation has been worsening for the past month and a half.

The countries seeing the biggest spikes are all situated in Europe, notably in the East, with the Czech Republic seeing cases double (101 percent). In Hungary cases were up 92 percent, followed by Denmark (80 percent), Poland (70 percent), Croatia (65 percent) and Slovakia (63 percent).

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- Improvement everywhere else -

But in every other region of the world the situation improved.

There were 16 percent fewer cases in the Middle East, 11 percent fewer in Africa, six percent  in Asia, three percent in the Latin America/Caribbean zone, two percent in Oceania and one percent less in the United States and Canada.

Israel, with 41 percent fewer cases per day, saw the biggest drop this week, followed by Cuba (36 percent less), Syria (24 percent), the Philippines (23 percent) and Venezuela (19 percent).

- US most infections -

The US remained by far the country with the biggest number of new cases -- 75,100 per day -- unchanged from the week before. It was followed by the United Kingdom (42,100 cases, a decrease of nine percent) and Russia (37,400 cases, an increase of 10 percent).

On a per capita basis the countries that recorded the most new cases this week were the three Baltic States, with Latvia having 925 cases per 100,000 habitants followed by Estonia with 847 and Lithuania 738.

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- Deaths-

The US also recorded the biggest number of deaths per day, on 1,471, followed by Russia with 1,095 and Ukraine 545.

At a global level there was also a six percent rise in the number of daily deaths, which stood at 7,344. But this was heavily influenced  by an upward revision of India's toll.

- Vaccinations -

Taiwan led the vaccination race this week, giving shots to 1.67 percent of its population every day, among countries with more than one million inhabitants.

Vietnam came next with 1.22 percent and Iran 1.18 percent.

The United Arab Emirates remains the most vaccinated country in the world, with 87 percent of its population completely jabbed, and Portugal hot on its heels with 86 percent.

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