Paris/New York — COVID-19 has claimed more than 550,000 lives and disrupted the entire world, sparing no region. As of July 2020, the number of daily new confirmed cases and deaths due to COVID-19 are growing rapidly in Latin America and the Caribbean, especially in Brazil and Mexico but also in many African countries as well as India. As highlighted in a recent article, these numbers are likely underestimated given the reduced testing capacity in many low and middle-income countries.
The Effective Reproduction Rate (ERR), defined as the average number of infections that an infected individual transmits to susceptible individuals, is above 1 in many African and Latin American countries and in India. An ERR of less than 1 signifies effective suppression, while an ERR above 1 signifies ongoing epidemic conditions. Countries in the Asia-Pacific, such as Taiwan or Vietnam, have largely suppressed the virus, although they must remain vigilant.
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