While the world focused its attention on the U.S. presidential election last week, the coronavirus pandemic did not pause, with daily case tolls hitting new highs in the United States as well as in large parts of Europe and across the globe.
According to the World Health Organization, daily new cases hit a record high of 594,756 on November 6, with the seven-day average of new infections climbing past the half million mark for the first time a day earlier. While some argue that the high number of new cases is caused by an steep increase in testing compared to a couple of months ago, the most recent surge in new infections cannot be attributed to testing alone, as testing rates haven’t increased significantly over the past few weeks, while new infections have surged, especially across Europe.
As of November 8, more than 50 million people had contracted COVID-19 worldwide, resulting in more than 1.25 million deaths. As the following chart shows, global new cases surged in recent weeks after having plateaued over the summer.
This chart shows the seven-day moving average of newly confirmed COVID-19 cases worldwide, by WHO region.
