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Global Covid cases near 100 million


Bangladeshpost
Published : 26 Jan 2021 09:57 PM

Covid continues to devastate countries across the world, as the total global caseload fast approaches the grim milestone of 100 million, reports AP.

According to Johns Hopkins University (JHU), the total Covid case count reached 99,706,375 while the death toll climbed to 2,139,803 on Tuesday morning.

The US remained the world's worst-hit country, with 25,291,320 cases and 420,965 fatalities, as per the latest university data.

Coronavirus deaths and cases per day in the US dropped markedly over the past couple of weeks, but are still running at alarmingly high levels, and the effort to snuff out COVID-19 is becoming an ever more urgent race between the vaccine and the mutating virus, reports AP.

The government’s top infectious-disease expert, Dr Anthony Fauci, said the improvement in numbers around the country appears to reflect a “natural peaking and then plateauing” after a holiday surge, rather than the arrival of the vaccine in mid-December.

The US is recording just under 3,100 deaths a day on average, down from more than 3,350 less than two weeks ago.

New cases are averaging about 170,000 a day after peaking at almost 250,000 on January 11. The number of hospitalised Covid patients has fallen to about 110,000 from a high of 132,000 on January 7.

India's Covid tally rose to 10,667, 736 on Tuesday, while the death toll mounted to 153,470, the Health Ministry said.

Brazil on Monday registered 627 deaths from Covid in the past 24 hours, raising the death toll to 217,664, the Ministry of Health said.

Tests detected 26,816 new infections, bringing the national caseload to 8,871,393, it added.

Brazil, which is experiencing a second wave of Covid, with a rise in cases and deaths since December, began mass vaccination against the disease last week.