Coronavirus infects 150 million people
PARIS/SAO PAULO: Worldwide Covid-19 cases crossed 150 million on Friday, according to an AFP count, with numbers soaring recently due to a relentless second wave in India. A total of 150.3 million cases have been declared since the coronavirus was first discovered in Wuhan, China in December 2019.
Worldwide, the number of new daily Covid-19 infections has more than doubled since midFebruary. After the second wave from October to January, the figure had slowed to a little over 350,000 a day. It is now 821,000 per day.
The explosion in infections has been blamed in part on new virus variants, but also on failure to follow virus restrictions, the World Health Organization (WHO) said on Thursday.
The countries in the world with the highest total number of recorded cases are the United States (32.3 million), India (18.8 million) and Brazil (14.6 million).
Taking into account population, the most-affected countries are Montenegro (15,457 cases per 100,000 residents), the Czech Republic (15,207 per 100,000) and Slovenia (11,513 per 100,000).
Brazil tops 400,000 virus deaths amid fresh surge Brazil on Thursday became the second country to officially top 400,000 Covid-19 deaths, losing another 100,000 lives in just one month, as some health experts warn there may be gruesome days ahead when the southern hemisphere enters winter.
April was Brazil’s deadliest month of the pandemic, with thousands of people losing their lives daily at crowded hospitals.
The country’s health ministry registered more than 4,000 deaths on two days early in the month, and its seven-day average topped out at above 3,100. That figure has tilted downward in the last two weeks, to less than 2,400 deaths per day, though on Thursday the health ministry announced another 3,001 deaths, taking Brazil’s total to 401,186.
Local health experts have celebrated the recent decline of cases and deaths, plus the eased pressure on the Brazilian health care system - but only modestly.
They are apprehensive of another wave of the disease, like those seen in some European nations, due to a premature resumption of activity in states and cities combined with slow vaccination roll-out.
AstraZeneca vaccine sales hit $275mn in 1st quarter British pharma giant AstraZeneca said its Covid-19 vaccine generated $275 million in sales in the first quarter. This is the first time that the company has disclosed figures from sales of one of the world’s leading vaccines, which it sells on a not-for-profit basis. AstraZeneca has delivered about 68 million doses of the vaccine.
Meanwhile, the English city of Liverpool will hold Britain’s first dance event in over a year without coronavirus restrictions on Friday and Saturday, as part of a mass gatherings trial. Nightlife promoter Circus will host 6,000 individuals in the first UK event of its kind in 14 months.