MOSCOW, June 3. /TASS/. A record number of COVID-19 cases, 8,909, has been documented in India in the past 24 hours, the republic’s Health Ministry informed on Wednesday. Consequently, the total number of infections in the country surpassed 200,000. Currently, India is the main hotbed of the virus in the Eastern hemisphere.
Meanwhile, in the Western hemisphere, Brazil has recorded the highest number of daily deaths from the virus, 1,262, with the total death toll since the onset of the epidemic surpassing 30,000. Brazil comes second in the world by the number of COVID-19 cases and fourth in the world by the coronavirus death toll.
The US remains at the top globally by the number coronavirus cases and deaths with 1.81 mln cases and over 105,000 virus-associated fatalities.
According to the latest statistics, over 6,468,700 people have been infected worldwide and more than 382,000 deaths have been reported. In addition, so far, over 3,078,900 individuals have recovered from the illness across the globe.
India’s record
The number of new infections in India has been growing for two weeks running, with the average daily increase in new cases exceeding 8,400 compared to about 7,100 last week.
The total number of COVID-19 cases in India has surpassed 207,600, the Indian Ministry of Health and Family Welfare informed on Wednesday. So far, India ranks seventh in the world by the number of coronavirus cases. It may soon overtake Italy (233,000) and Spain (240,000), as those European countries are reporting a minimum number of daily new cases.
According to the Indian Health Ministry, the total number of the hospitalized has surpassed 100,000 for the first time, reaching 101,497. Meanwhile, the number of recoveries has also surpassed 100,000 (100,303). The country has reported 421 deaths from the virus in the past 24 hours, with the total death toll reaching 5,815.
Earlier, the Indian government announced that the isolation and restrictive measures would be prolonged. The measures will be gradually lifted in the areas less affected by the virus. The measures will remain in place until June 30 in the so-called containment zones, where the number of the infected is growing. The rest of the territories will move on to the gradual lifting of the tough restrictive measures starting June 8.
Brazil’s growth
Brazil has documented 31,199 deaths from the novel coronavirus since the start of the epidemic, the republic’s Health Ministry informed on Tuesday evening. The largest country in South America has documented more deaths from the virus than Spain and France, being close to overtaking Italy, which currently ranks third in the world by coronavirus deaths (33,530) after the US and the UK. In the past 24 hours, 55 people have died from the virus in Italy, which is the lowest figure since early March.
In the past 24 hours, the number of new cases of the virus has risen by over 28,900, which is only a slight decrease compared to last week’s record numbers.
Since the pandemic began, Brazil has documented over 555,000 cases of the virus, ranking second in the world by the number of COVID-19 cases, surpassing Russia where a total of 432,277 coronavirus cases and 195,957 recoveries have been confirmed. Russia’s latest data indicates 5,215 fatalities nationwide.
According to the Brazilian Health Ministry, the coronavirus situation will stabilize by July, while in August, the curve will flatten, and in September, the number of new cases will drop.
US ranks first
In the past 24 hours, the US has documented nearly 22,000 new cases of the novel coronavirus, the Johns Hopkins University informed. The total number of those infected since the start of the pandemic has surpassed 1.81 mln, which constitutes about 30% of all coronavirus cases documented in the world.
The daily new cases of the virus in the US have stood at about 20-25,000 for the past two weeks.
In the past 24 hours, 784 people have died in the US from the novel coronavirus, with the total death toll surpassing 105,000. Despite the continuous rise in infections, the majority of American states began to lift some of the sanitary restrictions introduced due to the coronavirus pandemic on the recommendation of the federal government.
In late December 2019, Chinese officials notified the World Health Organization (WHO) about the outbreak of a previously unknown pneumonia in the city of Wuhan, in central China. Since then, cases of the novel coronavirus — named COVID-19 by the WHO — have been reported in every corner of the globe. On March 11, 2020, the WHO declared the coronavirus outbreak a pandemic.