Global coronavirus cases
Covid-19 in Bangladesh: Death toll crosses 2,700 in 18 weeks
Bangladesh on Tuesday reported the death of 41 more patients from Covid-19 disease in the last 24 hours, raising the death tally to 2,709.
Coronavirus: India sees biggest daily surge of near 39,000 cases
India saw a record 24-hour surge of 38,902 new coronavirus cases, which took the country's total confirmed infections to 1,077,618 on Sunday.
The health authorities reported 543 additional deaths -- total 26,816 so far.
Meanwhile, the number of people who have recovered continues to grow. The Health Ministry data shows 677,422 patients have been cured so far across the country, putting the recovery rate at 62.82 percent.
Experts say India is likely to witness a series of peaks as the infection spread in rural areas.
The total number of confirmed cases of coronavirus passed 14.2 million on Sunday, with over 600,000 recorded deaths, according to the tally kept by US-based Johns Hopkins University. But these are only officially confirmed numbers and experts say the real number is much higher.
Coronavirus cases were first reported in China in December late last year. The World Health Organization (WHO) declared it a pandemic on March 11.
Coronavirus: Bangladesh registers over 100 deaths in 3 days
Amid rise in coronavirus infections in Bangladesh due to free movement of people and violation of the health guidelines, the health authorities reported over 100 deaths within three days until Sunday.
On Sunday, the death toll from Covid-19 reached 2,618 in the country with 37 new deaths in the last 24 hours.
Bangladesh reported over 2,500 deaths on Friday and the death toll exceeded 2,600 Sunday.
Coronavirus: Total cases cross 2 lakh mark; Daily tests decline
The number of coronavirus cases in Bangladesh crossed 2,00,000-mark on Saturday as the health authorities detected 2,709 new patients in the last 24 hours.
The new cases were detected after conducting only 10,923 RT-PCR tests.
Bangladesh on the 19th week of infection registered 2,02,266 cases after the first three cases were detected on March 8.
Although the number of tests falls, the daily infection rate has mounted up to 24.80 percent. Total 19.86 percent of people found infected with Covid-19 disease against the 10,17,674 tests conducted so far.
With 34 more deaths recorded in the last 24 hours, 2,581 patients have died from the disease so far. The mortality rate in Bangladesh is now 1.28 percent.
Covid-19: Bangladesh sees nearly 1 positive case in every 5 tests
With just over a million Covid-19 tests carried out since March, Bangladesh on Friday inched closer to 200,000 officially confirmed cases – which means nearly one in every five tests had turned out to be positive.
The health authorities announced finding 3,034 new cases after testing 13,460 samples across the country in the last 24 hours until morning. The number of confirmed cases now stands at 199,357. The government says 10,06,791 samples have so far been tested.
“In the last 24 hours, 51 people died of coronavirus raising the total number to 2,547,” Directorate General of Health Services (DGHS) Additional Director General Prof Dr Nasima Sultana said at a daily briefing.
Russia may finish coronavirus vaccine trials first: Expert
The final trials of a Russian coronavirus vaccine developed by the Gamalei National Research Center for Epidemiology and Microbiology may be completed earlier than in other countries, an expert said.
Kirill Dmitriev, the head of the Russian Direct Investment Fund, told the Vesti news programme on Rossiya-1television on Thursday that this phase 3 trial is necessary to put the vaccine into active use.
“We believe that Russia will possibly go through this phase quicker than other countries," Dmitriev said, reports TASS.
India Covid-19 cases surpass one million
India has registered one million coronavirus cases, the third highest after the US and Brazil, according to report of the Health Ministry on Friday.
In the last 24 hours, the country has reported 34,956 new cases, taking the total number of confirmed cases to 1,003,832.
The surge in Covid-19 cases is also prompting concerns about the country's readiness to confront an inevitable surge that could overwhelm hospitals and test India’s feeble health care system.
The Health Ministry also reported a record number of 687 deaths for a total of 25,602 and noted that the recovery rate was continuing to improve at 63 percent.
The grim milestone comes at a time when several Indian states are imposing focused lockdowns to stem the outbreak amid frantic efforts by local governments to protect the economy.
So far, three states — Maharashtra, Delhi and Tamil Nadu — have accounted for more than half of total cases. But in India’s vast countryside, which is much less prepared and with weaker health care facilities, the pandemic is clearly growing.
“The acceleration in cases remains the main challenge for India in the coming days,” said Dr Ashish Jha, director of the Harvard Global Health Institute, adding that a vast majority of cases were still being missed.
The continuing surge has forced authorities to reinstate lockdowns in some cities and states.
In Bangalore, a city that prides itself as the centre of of Indian technology innovation, the government ordered a weeklong lockdown that began Tuesday evening after the cases surged exponentially.
In Bihar, an eastern state with a population of 128 million and a fragile health system, a two-week lockdown was announced Thursday.
In Uttar Pradesh, the most populous state with more than 200 million people, authorities have started placing residents under strict weekend curfews, which will remain in place until the end of July.
Other local governments are increasingly focusing on smaller lockdowns that shield the economy. Nearly a dozen states have imposed restrictions on “containment zones” — areas that can be as small as a few houses or a street.
Dr Anant Bhan, a global health researcher, said that India was likely to see “a series of peaks,” as the infection spread in rural areas. He pointed out that New Delhi and the financial capital, Mumbai had already seen surges, while infections have now shifted to smaller cities.
India’s response to the virus was initially sluggish and then it bought time by locking down its entire population of 1.4 billion people when Prime Minister Narendra Modi imposed a nationwide lockdown for three weeks on March 24.
“If (the) situation is not handled in these 21 days, the country and your family could go back 21 years,” Modi said then in a televised address to Indians, many of whom were still unaware of the scale of the crisis in the country.
The nationwide lockdown, then extended for five more weeks, came at an enormous economic cost amid an unprecedented humanitarian crisis when millions of impoverished migrant workers were forced to return to the countryside due to job losses and hunger.
Aimed at increasing the capacity of the health care system, the lockdown slowed down the virus, but it wasn't enough. Cases kept increasing while testing still remained abysmally low and the virus rocketed through India’s vast landscape.
“Slowdown isn’t eradication,” said Jayaprakash Muliyil, an epidemiologist at the Christian Medical College in Vellore.
Muliyil said that India had to try and slow down the virus because it didn’t have enough beds but was only partly successful since the “requirement was quite large.”
Covid-19: US reports half million new cases each week
The United States is approaching half a million new COVID-19 cases each week, according to a report of The COVID Tracking Project released Thursday.
This week, about 435,000 Americans were diagnosed with COVID-19, the fourth week of big increases in the number of new cases, the report said.
As of July 15, more than 56,000 people are currently in the hospital with COVID-19 in the US.
A total of 4,872 more people have died of COVID-19 across the country, an increase of nearly 29 percent from the previous week, the report added, reports Xinhua.
States with major outbreaks including Arizona, California, Florida, and Texas -- all saw record high weekly hospitalisations and deaths. The worsening outbreaks in many other states threaten to increase the pandemic's death toll in the coming weeks.
This week, US states and territories reported more than 5 million COVID-19 tests in a single week.
The Harvard Global Health Institute estimates that the US will need to perform at least 8.4 million tests per week to slow the spread of the virus, and 30 million tests per week to suppress the pandemic.
Coronavirus: Total cases near 2 lakh in Bangladesh
Bangladesh’s Covid-19 cases came close to 2 lakh mark on the 19th week of infection as health authorities on Thursday confirmed that another 2,733 people have been infected in the last 24 hours.
Coronavirus confirmed cases soar in US amid restrictions
About 36,000 new coronavirus cases have been reported from California, Arizona, Texas and Florida on Wednesday amid restrictions aimed at combating the spread of the pandemic took hold in the United States and around the world in an unsettling sign reminiscent of the dark days of April.
The soaring counts of confirmed infections and a mounting death toll forced the mayor of Los Angeles to declare that the nation's second-largest city is on the verge of resorting to a shutdown of all but essential businesses.
Besides, California, Arizona, Florida and Texas reported a total of more than 450 new deaths. Alabama reported a pandemic-high one-day total of 40 deaths, and officials said the state will begin requiring face masks.
More school districts made plans to start the fall semester without on-site instruction, and the 2021 Rose Parade in California was canceled.
Other events went ahead undeterred. Thousands of auto-racing fans gathered at Bristol Motor Speedway in Tennessee for a NASCAR event. Officials allowed 30,000 at the track, and the event marked the largest sporting event since the pandemic began four months ago. Disney World moved forward with the rolling opening of its Florida theme parks.
According to a tally by Johns Hopkins University, more than 13 million coronavirus cases were confirmed worldwide, with over 580,000 deaths.
The actual numbers are thought to be far higher for a number of reasons, including limited testing.
In Texas, which again set a record for confirmed new cases, with nearly 10,800, Republican Gov. Greg Abbott has increasingly emphasized face coverings as the way to avoid another lockdown.
Montana Gov. Steve Bullock required masks at indoor public spaces and at larger outdoor gatherings in counties where four or more people are known to have COVID-19. The Democrat's order came as the state reported a record number of new confirmed cases.
In Ohio, Gov. Mike DeWine, who has faced criticism from fellow Republicans over business closures, gave a televised address with an emotional appeal to residents to make sacrifices to protect their neighbors. But he stopped short of mandating masks.
Among the sternest measures were in New York, where Democratic Gov. Andrew Cuomo added to a list totaling 22 states whose visitors will be required to quarantine for two weeks if they visit the tri-state region. Out-of-state travelers arriving in New York airports from those states face a $2,000 fine and a mandatory quarantine order if they fail to fill out a tracing form.
The broad reach of the virus has brought scrutiny to governors' decisions. Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt, a first-term Republican governor who has backed one of the country's most aggressive reopening plans, became the first U.S. governor to announce that he had tested positive for COVID-19. He plans to quarantine at home.
Stitt, who has resisted a statewide mandate on masks and rarely wears one himself, attended President Donald Trump’s rally in Tulsa last month, which health experts have said likely contributed to a surge in coronavirus cases there. Stitt said he’s confident he didn’t contract the virus at the gathering.
Florida surpassed 300,000 confirmed cases, reporting 10,181 new infections as its daily average death rate keeps rising. Major cities have required masks, but Gov. Ron DeSantis has declined to issue a statewide order, arguing that it's best decided and enforced locally.
Still, the Republican governor on Tuesday wore a mask while speaking publicly for the first time — at a roundtable news conference with Miami-Dade County mayors.
“We have broken single-day records several times this week, and there’s nothing about it that says we’re turning the corner or seeing light at the end of the tunnel. I don’t see that in the numbers," said Dr. Nicholas Namias, chief of trauma and surgical critical care at Jackson Memorial Hospital.
He said diminishing bed capacity is creating problems at the Miami medical center.
“We’re getting to the point where it’s going to be full. We have gridlock, and we won’t be able to take patients, and they’ll just be stacked in the ERs,” Namias said.
In Washington, a divided approach to the pandemic spilled into public view in extraordinary fashion, with trade adviser Peter Navarro panning Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nation’s top infectious disease expert. Fauci called the criticism “nonsense” and “a bit bizarre.” Trump stepped in to referee, saying “we’re all on the same team.”
All travelers arriving in Greece from a land border with Bulgaria were required to carry negative coronavirus test results issued in the previous 72 hours. The new rules, which follow an increase in tourism-related COVID-19 cases, triggered an immediate drop in arrivals compared with recent days.
Romania, citing the rising number of infections, announced a 30-day extension of a nationwide state of alert. And residents of Australia’s second-largest city, Melbourne, were warned to comply with lockdown regulations or face tougher restrictions.
In Israel, officials warned that if infection numbers don’t dwindle in the coming days,they will have no choice but to lock down the entire country again, as it did in the spring.
South Africa is already showing signs of being overwhelmed by the pandemic — an ominous outlook for the rest of the continent of 1.3 billion people.