-While Indian COVID-19 cases cross 3 million mark, fatalities reach 56,706
Foreign Desk Report
New York: The global death toll from the coronavirus surpassed 800,000, according to a Reuters tally, with the United States, Brazil and India leading the rise in fatalities.
Nearly 5,900 people are dying every 24 hours from COVID-19 on average, according to Reuters calculations based on data from the past two weeks that ended.
That equates to 246 people per hour, or one person every 15 seconds. The rate of deaths is holding steady with it taking 17 days to go from 700,000 to 800,000 deaths the same time it took to go from 600,000 to 700,000.
The U.S. death toll surpassed 170,000 on Sunday, the highest in the world. While the number of new cases is down from a peak in July, the country is still seeing over 360,000 new cases a week. Many public schools and universities reopened classrooms to students despite positive test rates of nearly 20% in some parts of the country. Less than a week after welcoming students, some schools are switching to online-only learning due to a spike in infections.
In India, the world’s second-most populous country, COVID-19 deaths topped 50,000 on Monday, five months after the country reported its first coronavirus fatality. India is only the third country, behind Brazil and the United States, to record more than 2 million infections. It has a relatively low case fatality rate of 1.9%, compared to the world average of 3.5%, but that may be due to underreporting.
Case fatality rates are about 3% in the United States and Brazil. Health experts have raised the alarm that Brazil and the United States still have no coordinated plan to fight the pandemic, as many officials focus on reopening schools and businesses, which is likely to worsen the outbreak.
Brazil’s death toll from COVID-19 passed 100,000 on Aug. 8 and continues to climb as most Brazilian cities reopen shops and dining even though the pandemic has yet to peak there.
Meanwhile, The number of coronavirus infections in India crossed the 3 million mark with 69,239 new cases reported on Sunday even as the country opened up various sectors from a lockdown that ground businesses to a halt and hurt economic growth.
With the fifth straight day of more than 60,000 new cases, India’s tally stands at 3.04 million, federal health ministry data showed, behind only the United States and Brazil. Deaths in India from COVID-19 rose by 912 to 56,706.
India on Sunday issued guidelines to open up its media production industry with norms for social distancing, crowd management and sanitisation.
“The general principles behind the SOP will help create a safe working environment for cast and crew in the industry,” Prakash Javadekar, India’s union minister for information and broadcasting said in a tweet.
