Reuters/ CCTV- The cumulative total of global COVID-19 cases surpassed 122.5 million infections as of Sunday, with the death toll exceeding 2.7 million people, according to the World Health Organization (WHO). The WHO coronavirus dashboard had shown that the global case count reached 122,524,424 infections and 2,703,620 deaths on Sunday.
The cumulative total of COVID-19 cases in the United States surpassed 29.8 million infections, including a death toll of over 542,000 people as of Sunday, according to the Center for Systems Science and Engineering (CSSE) at Johns Hopkins University. The coronavirus confirmed cases in the U.S. had reached 29,816,771 infections, including 542,343 deaths as of Sunday.
The U.S. is now looking to suppress the spiking cases with what many health experts call "a race between mass vaccination and virus variants". The former commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration Scott Gottlieb cautioned that the highly contagious and more lethal coronavirus variants are becoming more prevalent. With the stronger strains dominating the circulation, the nation might again plunge into another wave of high infections, he said.
Although the country has been racing with vaccination to stay ahead of the variants, only less than a quarter of the population have so far received their first jab. The number of those who have taken their full two jabs are even less, only around 13 percent.
Meanwhile, another 5,312 people in Britain have tested positive for COVID-19, bringing the total number of coronavirus cases in the country to 4,296,583 infections, according to official figures released on Sunday. The country also reported another 33 coronavirus-related deaths. The total number of coronavirus-related deaths in Britain now stands at 126,155 people. These figures only include the deaths of people who died within 28 days of their first positive test.
Life expectancy among Londoners has fallen sharply as a result of COVID-19, with men living on average 2.5 years less and women 1.6 years less, marking the largest since the Second World War. Experts described the data, from Public Health England (PHE), as "staggering", the London-based Evening Standard newspaper reported, adding that poorer male Londoners suffered the biggest drop, losing an average 3.3 years.
The statistics come from PHE's Wider Impacts of COVID-19 on Health (WICH) monitoring tool, which details the indirect effects of the pandemic on the population's health and wellbeing. Analysis by the King's Fund health think-tank saw the biggest falls in life expectancy in London, from 81.3 to 78.8 for men and 85 to 83.4 for women.
Meanwhile, French health authorities on Sunday reported 30,581 new coronavirus cases and 138 new related deaths in the past 24 hours. The cumulative number of patients who have caught the respiratory illness rose to 4,282,603 cases, while coronavirus-linked fatalities were at 92,305 people. The novel coronavirus variant found in Britain is widespread in France, said Arnaud Fontanet, a French epidemiologist and member of the science council, in an interview on Sunday.
He said in addition to the 16 provinces currently restricted by the new lockdown measures, some other regions may soon find themselves in a "very difficult" situation.
Meanwhile, a total of 20,159 new coronavirus cases were registered within one day, pushing the caseload in the country to 3,376,376 infections, according to the Health Ministry of Italy. The country saw 300 new deaths in the past 24 hours on Sunday, bringing its death toll to 104,942 people. The outbreak in the country shows signs of slowing down, and there has also been a significant decline in the number of infections among health workers and nursing homes, said Franco Locatelli, president of Italy's Higher Health Council, on Sunday.
Meanwhile, Turkey's COVID-19 caseload crossed the 3-million mark on Sunday after 20,428 new infections were added. The total COVID-19 cases surged to 3,013,122 infections while its death toll from the virus rose by 102 fatalities to 30,061 people, according to the Turkish Health Ministry. The total recoveries from the disease in Turkey climbed to 2,825,187 cases after 17,615 more patients recovered. The country started mass vaccination against COVID-19 on Jan. 14 after the authorities approved the emergency use of the Chinese CoronaVac vaccine with more than 8,018,000 people having been vaccinated so far.
Meanwhile, the tally of COVID-19 cases in Iran surpassed 1.8 million amid the raging pandemic.
Meanwhile, India's COVID-19 tally rose to 11,599,130 infections on Sunday with 43,846 new cases, the highest daily increase since Nov. 30, registered during the past 24 hours, according to the latest data from the federal health ministry. The death toll mounted to 159,755 people as 197 COVID-19 patients died since Saturday morning. The number of new cases and deaths registered during the past 24 hours are both record highs this year. Earlier this week Prime Minister Narendra Modi had expressed concern at the sudden rise in COVID-19 cases and called for immediate steps to curb a possible second wave of the pandemic in the country.
The recent spike in COVID-19 infections in India was likely caused by slip-ups in precautionary measures and more infectious variants of the novel coronavirus, said Dr. Randeep Guleria, director of All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) in New Delhi. "There is a loss of COVID-19 appropriate behavior. Now people feel that the pandemic is over because vaccines are here. So they fail to wear masks. We see large crowds gathering - again without masks. Many of these crowded events have become super-spreading events," Guleria told a local television news channel on Saturday.
Guleria warned the coronavirus epidemic would spread even more rapidly if basic protective steps like wearing masks and rigorous contact-tracing were not taken. India's federal health ministry on Sunday stressed the need for the northern state of Uttarakhand to adopt stringent measures to control spread of the COVID-19 pandemic during the annual Kumbh Mela fair.
Meanwhile, the confirmed COVID-19 cases in Japan increased by 1,119 cases to reach 456,865 infections on Sunday, according to the latest figures by the Japan Broadcasting Corporation, NHK. The death toll in Japan from the virus stood at 8,836 people, with 19 new fatalities announced on Sunday. Tokyo on Sunday reported another 256 new COVID-19 cases. The local seven-day average stood at 301.1 infections, which is 107.9 percent of the average daily caseload of the previous week. The average has consistently remained higher than the metropolitan government's aim to keep the figure below 70 percent of the previous week. Despite the increase of cases, the Japanese government announced that its second coronavirus state of emergency for Tokyo and neighboring Saitama, Chiba and Kanagawa expired at the end of Sunday.
