Tracking the coronavirus across Europe

IN SPRING 2020 much of Europe was shut down to slow the spread of covid-19. Ten months on the continent is once again trying desperately to restrain the pandemic. By July 27th the first wave had resulted in the loss of 180,000 lives across Europe's 39 countries and territories (see the map above). After some respite during the summer months a second wave—now largely driven by a more infectious variant first spotted in Britain' in December—has caused a further 350,000 deaths.

Europeans and their governments will be hoping that vaccines, developed in record time, as well as lockdowns will help to reduce infections. More than 30 countries have active inoculation programmes, which make use of three main vaccines, developed by Pfizer/BioNTech, Moderna, and AstraZeneca/Oxford University. So far 14m shots have been administered. Britain, which on December 8th was the first country in the world to begin vaccinations, has now given jabs to more than one person in 20.

Although vaccination programmes offer hope that life can return to normal, they remain nascent. In the meantime, to assess how European countries are coping with suppressing the virus, The Economist has assembled data on covid-19 cases and deaths for 39 countries, and for 173 sub-national areas for which data are available. We present the total number of deaths per 100,000 in the population. We also break down the infection and death rates for the past seven days to give a better sense of where the virus is most active.

A different way of visualising these data is shown below, in time series for deaths and infections in 16 countries. To facilitate country-by-country comparisons, we have smoothed both variables using a seven-day moving average and indexed them so that each curve peaks at 100. Just three of the countries in our selection—Ireland, Spain and Sweden—have so far recorded fewer deaths during the second wave than the first. Largely because testing regimes have improved, all 16 have recorded far higher infection peaks than in the spring.

In the charts below, we use the same presentation format as ones above, but for 12 selected sub-national areas. The shape of these curves is very similar to that of the national ones, yet there are important discrepancies. For example, after battling a severe outbreak of infections in the autumn, Britain's North West is now in effect in its third wave of the pandemic.

The table below presents the complete data for deaths and cases over the past week for each of the countries and regions that we are tracking. (You can sort each column by clicking on its header.) These figures are updated twice a day.

As ever, some caution is required when interpreting these statistics. Differences in the amount of covid-19 testing and occasionally in the recording of deaths means that direct comparisons between one country’s statistics and another's can be tricky. For an all-encompassing measure of covid-19's toll, see our excess-death mortality data, which compare overall death rates in each country with the historical average. However, excess-mortality data are often incomplete and are released with a delay of several weeks or more. Subnational data thus provide useful and timely information on the progress of the pandemic. ■

To keep up with our coverage of the pandemic, visit our coronavirus hub. Some of our covid-19 coverage is free for readers of The Economist Today, our daily newsletter.

Sources: Eurostat; Johns Hopkins University CSSE; UN; Blavatnik School of Government, University of Oxford; Our World In Data; national statistical and health agencies; The Economist