Global coronavirus cases surpass 100 million

Gulf Today Report

Global coronavirus cases surpassed 100 million as infections rise in Europe and Americas and the Asia-Pacific region scrambles to contain fresh outbreaks, while governments hurry to procure adequate vaccine supplies.

The daily number of new coronavirus infections in France stayed above 20,000 on average for the fourth straight day on Tuesday, while hospitalisations reached an eight-week high of 27,041.

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The Biden administration is "actively looking" at expanding mandatory COVID-19 testing to travellers on US domestic flights, a senior Centers for Disease Control and Prevention official said.

The daily number of new coronavirus infections in France stayed above 20,000 on Tuesday.

Brazil's President Jair Bolsonaro approved a group of private sector firms to buy 33 million vaccine doses from AstraZeneca Plc, as the country approached a total caseload of nine million.

Mexico's Deputy Health Minister Hugo Lopez-Gatell said emergency use of Russia's Sputnik V COVID-19 vaccine should be authorised within days.

A volunteer in the local Peruvian trial of a coronavirus vaccine produced by China's Sinopharm Group Co Ltd has died from COVID-19-related pneumonia.

China recorded its lowest daily increase in COVID-19 cases in more than two weeks, with the country administering about 22.8 million doses of coronavirus vaccines.

India has vaccinated 2 million health workers in less than two weeks and recorded 12,689 new coronavirus positive cases in the past 24 hours, a sharp decline from a peak level of nearly 100,000 in mid-September.

The United States' total positive cases since the start of the epidemic reached 25.43 million.

The health Ministry said the daily new cases had fallen below 10,000 on Tuesday with 9,102 cases. The daily new positive cases were 9,304 on June 4 last year.

India’s fatalities dropped to 137 in the past 24 hours from a peak level of 1,089 daily deaths in September. India’s total positive cases since the start of the epidemic have reached 10.6 million, the second highest after the United States with 25.43 million cases.

Almost 1.3 per cent of the world's population has now been infected with COVID-19, the disease caused by the novel coronavirus, and more than 2.1 million people have died.

One person has been infected every 7.7 seconds, on average, since the start of the year. Around 668,250 cases have been reported each day over the same period, and the global fatality rate stands at 2.15 per cent.

India’s total number of positive cases since the start of the epidemic has hit 10.6 million.

The worst-affected countries — the United States, India, Brazil, Russia and the United Kingdom — make up more than half all reported COVID-19 cases but represent 28 per cent of the global population, according to a Reuters analysis.

It took the world 11 months to record the first 50 million cases of the pandemic, compared to just three months for cases to double to 100 million.