MOSCOW, August 8. /TASS/. The number of novel coronavirus cases worldwide increased by 1.8 million in the past seven days - the biggest-ever weekly figures reported since the start of the pandemic.

More than 19.1 million people all over the world have so far been diagnosed with the illness, or 0.2% of the global population.

The Americas and Asia remain the hotbeds of the pandemic. The situation is particularly difficult in Latin American countries, which hold five spots in the top ten of the hardest-hit countries. The infection also started to gain momentum in western and southern Europe, where the authorities are forced to reintroduce epidemiological restrictions.

Preliminary mortality figures, however, declined to their lowest of 3.7%. The world’s overall novel coronavirus death toll currently stands at about 715,000.

The number of convalescents, on the contrary, has been increasing rapidly. About 1.4 million coronavirus patients have already recovered, which is the highest weekly number since the start of the pandemic. In total, 11.6 million people - or more than 60% of the overall number of cases - have already recovered.

Among the hardest-hit countries, the infection is spreading most rapidly in India, Colombia and Argentina. Colombia, which is the ninth most-affected country worldwide, recorded the growth of 25% in the past week, to about 357,700 cases in total. In India, the third hardest-hit country, the overall number of confirmed cases increased by 23.5% in the reported period, exceeding 2 million.

The number of cases in Argentina grew by 23% in the past seven days, to 228,000 people. The country’s weekly increase remains above 20% for the second consecutive month despite strict measures to contain the infection.

The United States remains the hardest-hit country, with some 4.8 million confirmed cases. The number of injured increased by 8.5% in the past seven days, compared to 11% in the previous week. The country reports about 60,000 new cases daily, which is twice as much as was recorded during the peak of the outbreak in April.

The spread of the infection slowed down slightly in Brazil, which is the second hardest-hit country after the United Staets. The weekly increase in new cases stood at 11.6% in the past seven days, compared to 14% a week earlier.

Russia is the fourth worst-affected country, with 877,135 confirmed cases overall. It is followed by South Africa, where the number of infected increased by 18% in the past week to reach about 482,000.

In Europe, the situation has been particularly worrying in Spain and France, where the number of cases started to increase again since mid-July. The weekly growth in Spain increased from 4.8% to 6% in the past week (almost 315,000 cases in total), while in France, the figure grew from 4% to 5.6% in the reported period (some 195,600 cases in total).

The infection claimed the lives of more than 42,000 people worldwide in the past week. However, preliminary mortality figures continue to decline. In the past seven days, global mortality decreased by 0.2 percentage points and now stands at 3.7%.

The United States and Brazil account for the majority of fatalities - about 160,000 and 98,000 deaths, respectively. Mexico, where the number of dead has increased to 50,500, is also among the hardest-hit countries.

The countries with the highest death rates per 100,000 population are San Marino (124), Belgium (621) and the United Kingdom (454).

A pneumonia outbreak caused by the COVID-19 virus (previously known as 2019-nCoV) was reported in China’s city of Wuhan, a large trade and industrial center with a population of 12 million, in late December 2019. Since then, cases of the new coronavirus have been reported in every corner of the globe. On March 11, 2020, the World Health Organization (WHO) declared the coronavirus outbreak a pandemic.

To date, 877,135 coronavirus cases have been confirmed in Russia, 14,725 of them fatal. In all, 683,592 patients have recovered which makes up 77.9% of the total COVID-19 case tally in the country. Russia’s death rate per 100,000 population is 10.