Tracking covid-19 across the world

ANY NEW VIRUS has known unknowns. How contagious is it, and how deadly? Which mutations will emerge, and where will they go? As SARS-CoV-2 moves from novel threat to an endemic disease, no one knows how it will continue to evolve. What is known is that some new variants of the virus are especially concerning, as they are more contagious or more deadly than the original virus that emerged in the Chinese city of Wuhan in December 2019. The latest is Omicron, first identified in a sample taken in southern Africa on November 8th. According to sequencing of genomic samples, Omicron is now the dominant strain around the world.

The covid-19 pandemic has upended the lives of billions of people since it struck Wuhan. Official tallies reckon that it has caused infections and led to the deaths of people. Although the true toll, as estimated by our covid-19 excess-mortality model, puts the figure at between 14m and 24.5m people. Vaccines to combat SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes the disease, have been developed in record time. So far countries have mass-vaccination programmes underway and together they have administered about jabs. Our global covid-19 data tracker is updated around the clock with the latest figures.

Vaccination

Vaccinations by region

Since the first inoculation, in Britain on December 8th 2020, mass-vaccination programmes have become active in every continent and nearly every country of the world. According to data collected by Our World In Data, a website, of the world's population have received at least one dose of a covid-19 vaccine.

First doses administered by country

A total of countries have now given first doses to more than half of their population. leads our vaccine chart, having given first doses to its residents, although has delivered the most second doses. is currently vaccinating the fastest. In the past week it has given shots to of people.

Doses administered by country

Cases and deaths

Confirmed cases by region

Epidemiologists estimate that perhaps three-quarters of people infected with SARS-CoV-2 show no symptoms. The quality of testing regimes varies enormously across the world. Tanzania has not reported a single case since May 2020 simply because it has not tested anyone. That makes it tricky to compare caseloads across countries. Nonetheless the trends can be informative. Cases have been rising fastest over the past seven days in .

Confirmed deaths by region

Cases can be hidden from view, but deaths are easier to detect (even though reporting standards for these also vary). Fully of the total global deaths from covid-19 have taken place in . Deaths over the past seven days are currently highest, per head of population, in .

Confirmed cases and deaths by country

Sources: Airfinity; GISAID; Johns Hopkins University, CSSE; The New York Times; Our World In Data; United Nations; press reports; The Economist

To stay up to speed with The Economist’s latest coverage of the pandemic, visit our coronavirus hub; register to receive our weekly newsletter, which has a special edition showcasing our coronavirus coverage; and follow our other data trackers showing excess deaths by country , the virus’s spread across Europe and America, and countries' path to normalcy.