But despite the rapid rise of new infections in these countries, their experiences in dealing with the outbreak is turning out entirely different due to just one factor — vaccination. While the West, which has managed to cover large swathes of its population, has managed to keep its deaths far lower than in previous waves, nations in Asia and Africa are struggling. Here’s a look at how the “Delta waves” are charting different statistics in the rich first world and the not-so-rich developing world.

1. Delta variant pushes new infections globally again

For the week ending June 21, the seven-day average of new cases across the world dropped to 359,095 a day – the lowest this figure had touched since February. Through most of June, with the exception of a handful of countries, new cases were dropping almost everywhere in the world’s major hot-spot nations, which was a good sign even as countries, especially in the West, rushed to cover as many people as possible with vaccines. But the “Delta wave” has since emerged. In the past week, more than 600,000 new cases were reported across the world every day, according to global case data maintained by Our World In Data. This is the highest daily case rate seen in at least two months; worryingly, the number is continuing to rise.

2. Cases rise in the vaccinated West, but deaths remain low

The case trajectories (seven-day average of new infections) of five Western nations – the United States, the United Kingdom, Portugal, France and Spain – where the Delta variant has been wreaking havoc show an alarming spike over the past few weeks.

All have completely vaccinated large proportions of their populations and feature among the countries with highest vaccine coverage in the world. Spain has fully vaccinated 57.6% of its residents, while the UK has done so for 56.5% of its population. In Portugal, 55.7% of the country is fully vaccinated while this number is 50.2% in the US and 47.1% in France.

While the highly infectious variant caused a spike in cases in these nations, deaths have remained low. In Spain, while there were 22,990 new cases every day in the past week, there were only 54 deaths a day on average. This translates to only 0.2% of infections in the past week resulting in deaths. The same proportion of cases have resulted in deaths in France as well, while deaths in the past week touched 0.3% of cases in the UK, 0.4% in Portugal and 0.5% in the US. The charts here show how the latest outbreaks in these countries are nowhere as fatal as previous waves – a clear result of the protection offered by vaccination.

3. Developing and unvaccinated world sees deaths soar

The story that is playing out in Asia and Africa, however, is very different. Asia, in particular, has borne the biggest brunt of the Delta variant.

For residents of these nations, access to vaccines has not been as easy as it has been in the West. For reasons ranging from supply issues to affordability to inability of their governments to cover their populations quickly with shots, the countries listed here have all managed to completely vaccinate only tiny proportions of their populations. For instance, Bangladesh has fully vaccinated just 2.6% of its residents, while Iran has managed to cover 2.9% of its citizens. In Thailand, just 5.2% of the nation’s population is completely vaccinated, while this number is 7.6% in Indonesia and 8.2% in Tunisia.

While India’s second wave may have been brought under control for now, in the past few weeks, nations such as Indonesia and Thailand have become two of the world’s biggest outbreak centres with the spread of the Delta variant. But the biggest concern for these nations is not the rate at which cases have soared, but of rising deaths.

Fatalities in these regions have soared to record highs, and continue to rise at an alarming rate. With the exception of Iran, average daily deaths in these countries are currently at record highs. Even in the case of Iran, it appears that the death trajectory will scale the previous record in a few days, unless the trend reverses.