3.4 Some countries avoided major outbreaks in 2020 I karo ētahi whenua i ngā putanga nui o te mate i te tau 2020
Home Reports COVID-19 by the Numbers 3 The origins of COVID-19 3.4 Some countries avoided major outbreaks in 2020
3.4. Some countries avoided major outbreaks in 2020 | I karo ētahi whenua i ngā putanga nui o te mate i te tau 2020
Figure 7 shows cumulative confirmed COVID-19 cases per million people, over time, for New Zealand and comparator countries. The numbers are reported as a rate that is relative to the size of a country's population, to allow comparisons between countries of different sizes.
Figure 7: Cumulative COVID-19 cases, 2020
Source: Our World in Data, World Health Organization
Notes: Due to limited testing and asymptomatic cases, the number of confirmed cases is lower than the true number of infections.
As Figure 7 shows, cases in the United States began to increase rapidly towards the end of July 2020. Total reported COVID-19 cases grew from fewer than 10,000 per million people (that is ,less than 1%) in June to almost 60,000 (6%) in December. After their initial growth, numbers in Italy, Sweden and the United Kingdom plateaued for five to six months, until they too began to increase. Australia, New Zealand and Japan benefited from their geographic isolation as islands and from public health measures, and did not see similar case rates.