COVID-19 Coronavirus data - weekly (from 17 December 2020)

The dataset contains a weekly situation update on COVID-19, the epidemiological curve and the global geographical distribution (EU/EEA and the UK, worldwide). Since the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic, ECDC’s Epidemic Intelligence team has collected the number of COVID-19 cases and deaths, based on reports from health authorities worldwide. This comprehensive and systematic process was carried out on a daily basis until 14/12/2020. See the discontinued daily dataset: [COVID-19 Coronavirus data - daily](https://data.europa.eu/data/datasets/covid-19-coronavirus-data?locale=en). ECDC’s decision to discontinue daily data collection is based on the fact that the daily number of cases reported or published by countries is frequently subject to retrospective corrections, delays in reporting and/or clustered reporting of data for several days. Therefore, the daily number of cases may not reflect the true number of cases at EU/EEA level at a given day of reporting. Consequently, day to day variations in the number of cases does not constitute a valid basis for policy decisions. ECDC continues to monitor the situation. Every week between Monday and Wednesday, a team of epidemiologists screen up to 500 relevant sources to collect the latest figures for publication on Thursday. The data screening is followed by ECDC’s standard epidemic intelligence process for which every single data entry is validated and documented in an ECDC database. An extract of this database, complete with up-to-date figures and data visualisations, is then shared on the ECDC website, ensuring a maximum level of transparency. ECDC receives regular updates from EU/EEA countries through the Early Warning and Response System (EWRS), The European Surveillance System (TESSy), the World Health Organization (WHO) and email exchanges with other international stakeholders. This information is complemented by screening up to 500 sources every day to collect COVID-19 figures from 196 countries. This includes websites of ministries of health (43% of the total number of sources), websites of public health institutes (9%), websites from other national authorities (ministries of social services and welfare, governments, prime minister cabinets, cabinets of ministries, websites on health statistics and official response teams) (6%), WHO websites and WHO situation reports (2%), and official dashboards and interactive maps from national and international institutions (10%). In addition, ECDC screens social media accounts maintained by national authorities on for example Twitter, Facebook, YouTube or Telegram accounts run by ministries of health (28%) and other official sources (e.g. official media outlets) (2%). Several media and social media sources are screened to gather additional information which can be validated with the official sources previously mentioned. Only cases and deaths reported by the national and regional competent authorities from the countries and territories listed are aggregated in our database. Disclaimer: National updates are published at different times and in different time zones. This, and the time ECDC needs to process these data, might lead to discrepancies between the national numbers and the numbers published by ECDC. Users are advised to use all data with caution and awareness of their limitations. Data are subject to retrospective corrections; corrected datasets are released as soon as processing of updated national data has been completed. ___ If you reuse or enrich this dataset, please [share](https://data.europa.eu/en/impact-studies/tell-us-your-story) it with us. ___