Washington, Nov 12 (IANS): The overall number of global coronavirus cases has topped 52 million, while the deaths have surged to 1,282,790, according to the Johns Hopkins University.
As of Thursday morning, the total caseload and death toll stood at 52,048,827 and 1,282,796, respectively, the University’s Center for Systems Science and Engineering (CSSE) revealed in its latest update.
The US is the worst-hit country with the world’s highest number of cases and deaths at 10,397,400 and 241,619, respectively, according to the CSSE.
India comes in second place in terms of cases at 8,636,011, while the country’s death toll soared to 127,571.
The other countries with more than a million confirmed cases are Brazil (5,747,660), France (1,914,722), Russia (1,822,345), Spain (1,417,709), Argentina (1,273,356), the UK (1,260,198) and Colombia (1,165,326), the CSSE figures showed.
Brazil currently accounts for the second highest number of fatalities at 163,368.
The countries with a death toll above 20,000 are Mexico (95,842), the UK (50,457), Italy (42,953), France (42,599), Spain (40,105), Iran (39,664), Peru (34,992), Argentina (34,531), Colombia (33,312) and Russia (31,326).
Greece to impose nationwide curfew as daily Covid-19 deaths rise
The Greek government announced on Wednesday a nationwide curfew starting from Friday evening as a new daily record of 43 Covid-19 deaths was reported.
Starting from Nov. 13, the country will go under curfew from 9:00 p.m. until 5:00 a.m. with only a few exemptions for work, health reasons, and walking pets, Deputy Minister for Civil Protection and Crisis Management Nikos Hardalias announced.
The new restrictive measure comes as the numbers of intubated and fatalities, in particular, were on the rise, despite the start of a second nationwide lockdown last week, the Xinhua news agency reported.
The National Public Health Organization (EODY) reported on Wednesday 2,752 new infections in the past 24 hours, which brought the total confirmed cases to 63,321 since the first one was diagnosed on February 26.
Since Tuesday 43 patients have died, while 297 were currently intubated.
A total of 909 people have lost their lives since the start of the pandemic in Greece.
The problem is more acute in big urban centres, according to the official figures. Breaking down Wednesday’s new cases, 635 were registered in the region of Attica and 777 in the region of Thessaloniki in northern Greece.
As the world is struggling to contain the Covid-19 pandemic, countries including Germany, China, Russia, the United Kingdom and the United States are racing to find a vaccine.
According to the website of the World Health Organization, as of Nov. 3, there were 202 Covid-19 candidate vaccines being developed worldwide, and 47 of them were in clinical trials.
