The most basic way to track the progress of any outbreak is by seeing how many new cases and deaths are reported in a given area each day.

And in the US, falling numbers in some of the hardest-hit places are encouraging. Totals for the country have been on a downward curve, and in former hot spots like New York and New Jersey, the counts appear to have peaked.

But infections and deaths are rising in more than a dozen states, an ominous sign that the pandemic may be entering a new phase.

Wisconsin saw its highest single-day increase in confirmed cases and deaths this week, two weeks after the state’s highest court overturned a stay-at-home order.

Cases are also on the rise in Alabama, Arkansas, California and North Carolina, which on Thursday reported some of the state’s highest numbers of hospitalizations and reported deaths since the crisis began.

In metropolitan areas like Fayetteville, Arkansas; Yuma, Arizona; and Roanoke and Charlottesville, Virginia, data show new highs may be only days or weeks away.

The pace is quickening worldwide, too. According to data compiled by The New York Times, nearly 700,000 new known infections have been reported just in the past week.

Outbreaks have accelerated especially sharply in Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, Mexico and Peru, leading the World Health Organisation to say on Tuesday that it considered the Americas to be the new centre of the pandemic.

And although much of West Asia seemed to avert early catastrophe even as the virus ravaged Iran, case counts have been swelling in Kuwait, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the UAE. Reported cases are not perfect measures to chart the spread of the virus because they depend on how much testing is done.