Poonam Singh

Washington: The total global covid-19 caseload has increased to nearly 88 million, while the deaths have surged to more than 1.89 million, according to the Johns Hopkins University.

The University's Center for Systems Science and Engineering (CSSE) revealed in its latest update that the current global caseload and death toll stood at 87,952,778 and 1,895,925, respectively on Friday morning.

The US is the worst-hit country with the world's highest number of cases and deaths at 21,543,310 and 364,735, respectively, according to the CSSE.

India comes in second place in terms of cases at 10,395,278, while the country's death toll soared to 150,336.

The other countries with more than a million confirmed cases are Brazil (7,961,673), Russia (3,297,833), the UK (2,898,037), France (2,763,370), Turkey (2,296,102), Italy (2,220,361), Spain (2,024,904), Germany (1,869,306), Colombia (1,737,347), Argentina (1,690,006), Mexico (1,479,835), Poland (1,356,882), Iran (1,268,263), South Africa (1,170,590), Ukraine (1,133,802) and Peru (1,022,018), the CSSE figures showed.

Brazil currently accounts for the second highest number of fatalities at 200,498.

The countries with a death toll above 20,000 are Mexico (129,987), the UK (78,632), Italy (77,291), France (66,700), Russia (59,628), Iran (55,933), Spain (51,675), Colombia (45,067), Argentina (44,122), Germany (38,304), Peru (37,925), South Africa (31,809), Poland (30,241), Indonesia (23,520), Turkey (22,264), and Ukraine (20,334).

US suffers record-high daily cases, deaths, hospitalizations

The US witnessed another grim milestone on Wednesday amid the chaos at the Capitol, with the country's daily Covid-19 cases, deaths as well as total hospitalisations all set new world records over the course of the pandemic.

A total of 2,99,904 new cases and 3,844 deaths were reported across the nation on Wednesday, according to data updated on Thursday by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

Both figures are the highest daily counts since the onset of the pandemic in the country, the Xinhua news agency reported.

This brought the 7-day average daily increase of cases to a record-high of over 2,28,000.

The country reported Covid-19 hospitalisations at over 1,32,400 cases as of Wednesday, which also set a new record, according to The Covid Tracking Project.

Hospitalisations in the South and West are now worse than the Midwest's peak, with four states in the South seeing record Covid-19 hospitalisations this week, according to the project.

Meanwhile, a total of 52 cases of a coronavirus variant first identified in Britain have been confirmed in the US, according to the CDC.

Spain's coronavirus cases surpass 2 million

The number of confirmed Covid-19 cases in Spain surpassed 2 million on Thursday after the Ministry of Health reported 42,160 new infections and 245 deaths for the period between 2 p.m. on January 5 and 2 p.m. on January 7.

The country has registered 20,24,904 cases of Covid-19 since the start of the pandemic, and 51,675 people have lost their lives to the virus. Meanwhile, the incidence of the virus has risen to 321 cases of Covid-19 per 1,00,000 inhabitants over the previous 14 days.

In response to the rising number of cases and fears of a third wave, many of Spain's autonomous regions have announced tougher restrictions, the Xinhua news agency reported.

The Catalan region has banned movement between municipalities, and the regions of Extremadura, La Rioja, Castilla la Mancha, Murcia and Valencia will close their borders from Thursday and will impose a curfew starting from 10 p.m.

The Castilla-Leon region on Thursday also closed its borders and imposed a 10 p.m. to 6 a.m. curfew until May 9.

These restrictions coincide with the start of the January sales period, which this year is expected to see far fewer people take advantage of post-Christmas bargains.

Russia logs 23,541 new Covid-19 cases

Russia recorded 23,541 more Covid-19 cases over the past 24 hours, down from 24,217 a day earlier, the country's Covid-19 response centre said on Thursday.

The national tally of Covid-19 cases has increased to 33,32,142, including 60,457 deaths and 27,09,452 recoveries, the centre said.

Moscow, Russia's worst-hit region, reported 4,871 new cases over the past day, taking the city's total caseload to 8,43,425, the Xinhua news agency reported.

Over 92.6 million Covid-19 tests have been conducted across the country.

(With IANS Inputs)

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