Global Covid cases inch closer to 89 million
Published : 09 Jan 2021, 12:48
As cases reach 89 million, the COVID-19 pandemic continues to devastate countries around the globe.
The cumulative count of COVID cases reached 88, 821,629, according to the latest data released by Johns Hopkins University, while the death toll climbed to 1,911,637 on Saturday morning.
The infection tally peaked near 21 million (21,857,293) in the US, the world's worst-hit country, while the death toll rose to 368,736, the figures revealed.
According to the COVID Tracking Project, the seven-day average positive rate for the nation has continued to grow since Christmas and stood at 13.6 percent on Thursday. That is well above the 10% rate deemed to be a marker of widespread contagion.
On Friday, a day after hitting the grim milestone of 200,000 deaths from the disease, Brazil reported over 8 million COVID-19 cases.
The Brazilian Ministry of Health said in its daily pandemic update that it had reported 52,035 new cases of COVID-19 in the past 24 hours, bringing the national count to 8,013,708 cases.
The ministry said there were 962 more deaths recorded, raising the national death toll to 201,460.
After the United States, Brazil has the second-highest COVID-19 death toll in the world and the third-largest outbreak, after America and India.
In India, 10,413,417 cases were reported by the health authorities, while the death toll from COVID was 150,570 as of Saturday morning.