Welcome to our weekly Top Ten update, where we highlight the states most in danger from the pandemic right now. And while Peru retains the top spot for the 2nd week running, much of the rest of the top ten is made up of states in Eastern Europe. In fact, while the situation in the world in general keeps getting slowly better (world cPDI is down from 35 to 34, and the threshold for the top ten diminished from 67 to 66), danger level in Eastern Europe climbed from 55 to 58, led mostly by a big jump in Hungary (from 74 to 79, bringing it from 5th place to 3rd).
The Hungarian leap stems mostly from a new rise in new cases, leading to a reproduction rate of 1.22. This, together with an abysmal mortality rate (6.4%) and rising test positivity (up to 11.2%) makes Hungary a major contender for the top spot in coming weeks. With Stringency in Hungary unchanged for a pretty long time, this rise in new cases is most likely the result of the infectious British mutation taking hold.
Elsewhere in the top ten, Brazil switched with Mexico as the second country of concern (aside from Peru) in Latin America, as the reproduction rate in Mexico dropped to 0.83 yet stayed around 1 in Brazil. At the bottom of the to top ten, two new entries replaced their neighbors, with Estonia overtaking Latvia (the Latvians lost 4 cPDI points and fell to 16th place) and Bosnia and Herzegovina replacing North Macedonia (but the Macedonians are still not far away from the top ten, at #12).
