Americas still count for half of fatalities amid global battle
The global death toll from the coronavirus passed 900,000 on Thursday, as worldwide cases topped 27.8 million, according to a Reuters tally.
The US remains the world’s worst-affected country, with deaths exceeding 190,000 and cases exceeding 6.3 million. Brazil is in second place with more than 127,000 deaths followed by India with nearly 74,000 dead.
On Wednesday, India reported 95,735 new confirmed infections – its highest-ever daily jump – bringing its total to over 4.4 million and bumping Brazil and its 4.2 million cases to third place.
As the epicenter of the pandemic shifts to India, there is no sign of a peak in the world’s second most populous nation. As bars reopened Wednesday for the first time since lockdown, it is adding more cases each day than any other country since the onset at the start of 2020. It is recording more deaths than any other country – an average of more than 1,000 daily for the last two weeks.
The Americas still account for more than half of all fatalities worldwide owing to high death counts in Mexico, Peru, Colombia, Chile and Ecuador.
An average of more than 5,600 people die each day from COVID-19, according to Reuters calculations based on data from the last two weeks. The rate of deaths is holding steady taking 18 days to climb from 800,000 to 900,000 deaths. It took 17 days to go from 700,000 to 800,000.
India’s fatality rate is around one percent, while Brazil and the US have mortality rates of around three percent, in line with the world average.
While both deaths and cases in the US are down from a July peak, cases are rising in about 40 percent of the country, exacerbated in part by a return of students to college towns.
As cases rebound in parts of Europe, countries have recently seen single-day records in new cases similar to those seen during the spring, signaling a second wave is underway.
Spain was the first country in western Europe to record more than half a million cases on Monday and now has 552,000 total infections.
This picture shows hospital workers securing a white burial shroud over the body of a patient who succumbed to COVID-19 in an isolation ward at the a hospital in Bogor, West Java, Indonesia on Wednesday. Photo: AFP
