PARIS: The novel coronavirus has killed at least 2,299,637 people since the outbreak emerged in China in December 2019, according to a tally from official sources compiled by AFP at 1100 GMT on Saturday.
At least 105,350,590 cases of coronavirus have been registered. Of these, at least 64,157,800 are now considered recovered.
These figures are based on daily tolls provided by the health authorities in each country and exclude later re-evaluations by statistical organisations, as has happened in Russia, Spain and Britain.
On Friday, 14,561 new deaths and 493,140 new cases were recorded worldwide.
Based on latest reports, the countries with the most new deaths were the United States with 3,475 new deaths, followed by Mexico with 1,368 and Brazil with 1,239.
The United States remains the worst-affected country with 459,554 deaths from 26,813,734 cases.
After the US, the hardest-hit countries are Brazil with 230,034 deaths from 9,447,165 cases, Mexico with 164,290 deaths from 1,912,871 cases, India with 154,918 deaths from 10,814,304 cases, and the United Kingdom with 111,264 deaths from 3,911,573 cases.
The country with the highest number of deaths compared to its population is Belgium with 184 fatalities per 100,000 inhabitants, followed by Slovenia with 173, the United Kingdom 164, the Czech Republic 160 and Italy 150.
Europe overall has 768,009 deaths from 34,351,837 cases, Latin America and the Caribbean 613,669 deaths from 19,410,779 infections, and the United States and Canada 480,145 deaths from 27,610,360 cases.
Asia has reported 243,755 deaths from 15,422,319 cases, the Middle East 98,928 deaths from 4,876,538 cases, Africa 94,186 deaths from 3,646,981 cases, and Oceania 945 deaths from 31,778 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
