ECDC: how the colors on the European coronavirus map have changed in the last month

The ECDC (European Center for Disease Prevention and Control) photographs the progress of the spread of the SARS-CoV-2 virus, the one that causes Covid-19. What we want to show you is how the situation has changed in the last month, from 23 September to 21 October 2021.

Countries, such as Italy, France and Spain, which a month ago still had some red areas, now show only green and orange areas. This means that the situation is clearly improving. On the contrary, in almost all of Central and Eastern Europe and the Scandinavian countries the situation has worsened, and we find the colors that now prevail are orange and red, with some “spots” even in dark red, as in Croatia.

The city of Zagreb, now in dark red for three weeks now, has been joined by a large part of continental Croatia, more precisely all of Slavonia, the counties of Sisak-Moslavina and Karlovac. According to data reported by the koronavirus.hr website, 3,053 new cases of Covid-19 infection have been registered in the last 24 hours and the number of active cases has reached a total of 13,717. As of 20 October, over 1,800,000 people have been vaccinated with at least one dose and of these more than 1,700,000 have either had the second or received the Jannsen vaccine. In practice this represents 52.18% of the adult population.

The map shown above graphically represents a “combined indicator”, which does not take into account a single data, but which brings together more information to offer the current situation at a glance. Here’s how the calculation is done:

• Green areas – The areas indicated in green are the one in which the positive cases are less than 50 per 100,000 inhabitants and the percentage of positive in the tests does not exceed 4 percent, or in which the first value does not go beyond 75 cases, but with a rate of less than 1%.
• Orange areas – Those in which one remains under 50 cases per 100,000 inhabitants, but the positivity rate is higher than 4 percent, or with cases between 50 and 75, but with 1% positivity, or still with a number of cases between 75 and 100 and rate below 4%.
• Red areas – Between 75 and 200 cases with a rate higher than 4% or between 200 and 500 cases per 100,000 inhabitants.
• Dark red areas – Those where there are over 500 cases per 100,000 inhabitants.
• Gray areas – Those for which insufficient data is available or the rate is less than 300 cases per 100,000 population.