Global COVID-19 death toll surpasses 2.7 million

The novel coronavirus has killed at least 2,702,004 people since the outbreak emerged in China in December 2019, according to an AFP tally compiled from official sources at 1100 GMT Saturday.

At least 122,241,510 cases of coronavirus have been registered. The vast majority have recovered, though some have continued to experience symptoms weeks or even months later.

These figures are based on daily tolls provided by health authorities in each country and exclude later re-evaluations by statistical organizations, as has happened in Russia, Spain and Britain.

On Friday, 10,217 new deaths and 507,669 new cases were recorded worldwide.

Based on latest reports, the countries with the most new deaths were Brazil with 2,815 new deaths, followed by United States with 1,649 and Mexico with 613.

The United States is the worst-affected country with 541,143 deaths from 29,729,999 cases.

After the US, the hardest-hit countries are Brazil with 290,314 deaths from 11,871,390 cases, Mexico with 197,219 deaths from 2,187,910 cases, India with 159,558 deaths from 11,555,284 cases, and the United Kingdom with 126,026 deaths from 4,285,684 cases.

The country with the highest death rate is Czech Republic with 229 fatalities per 100,000 inhabitants, followed by Belgium with 195; Slovenia with 191; Montenegro with 189; and the United Kingdom with 186.

Europe overall has 914,652 deaths from 41,016,331 cases, Latin America and the Caribbean 737,861 deaths from 23,397,782 infections, and the United States and Canada 563,755 deaths from 30,655,457 cases.

Asia has reported 265,368 deaths from 16,930,885 cases, the Middle East 109,893 deaths from 6,116,658 cases, Africa 109,502 deaths from 4,090,378 cases, and Oceania 973 deaths from 34,027 cases.

Since the start of the pandemic, the number of tests conducted has greatly increased while testing and reporting techniques have improved, leading to a rise in reported cases.

However, the number of diagnosed cases is only a part of the real total number of infections as a significant number of less serious or asymptomatic cases always remain undetected.

As a result of corrections by national authorities or late publication of data, the figures updated over the past 24 hours may not correspond exactly to the previous day’s tallies.

(AFP)