MOSCOW, August 14. /TASS/. The number of novel coronavirus cases worldwide grew by 9.3% this week, sliding below 10% for the first time since the start of the pandemic, according to TASS calculations.
A total of 1.8 million new cases were registered worldwide in the past seven days, up 9.3% Last week, the growth amounted to 10.4%
The overall number of novel coronavirus cases worldwide now stands at 20.9 million, or 0.27% of the global population.
The spread of the infection slowed down in North America, but South America still remains a hotspot of the pandemic. Another hotspot is Asia, where highest-ever daily figures are being reported. The situation remains stable in western and southern European countries, once among the hardest-hit.
The number of convalescents increased by 1.55 million this week, reaching 13 million or 62% of those infected.
Preliminary mortality (final figures will be available only when the pandemic is over) dropped to all-time low of 3.6% In the past seven days, about 40,000 coronavirus-positive people died worldwide, bringing the overall death toll to approximately 755,000.
Maximum daily growth
The highest daily growth figures were reported in India, the United States and Brazil. The same countries, but in a different order - US, Brazil, India - have the highest number of infected.
India reported on average 62,000 new coronavirus cases daily this week. The number of infected increased by 21% in the reported period to reach 2.5 million.
The United States, where 5.2 people have so far tested positive for the novel coronavirus, reported about 54,000 new cases daily. However, in relative terms, the growth slowed down from 8.5% to 7.6%
Brazil, which is the world’s second hardest-hit country with 3.2 million confirmed novel coronavirus cases, reports on average about 45,000 new cases each day. The weekly growth in the country, however, declined to its lowest in the past three months and stood at 10.6%
Russia, which is ranked fourth in terms of overall number of those infected (about 913,000), registers about 5,000 cases daily. Its weekly growth declined to 4.1% this week (compared to 4.4% in the past week).
Other countries where daily growth figures remain high are Colombia (about 11,500 cases recorded daily), Peru (about 7,500 cases), Argentina (about 7,000 cases) and Mexico (about 6,000 cases).
Number of cases per 100,000 people
The countries with the highest number of cases per 100,000 population are Qatar (about 4,000), Bahrain (some 2,700 cases) and Chile (about 2,000).
The United States and Brazil are ranked eighth and tenth respectively, with 1,600 and 1,510 cases per 100,000 people.
India is ranked 91th (178 infected per 100,000 of the population). Russia has 622 cases per 100,000 people.
Highest mortality
In the past seven days, about 40,000 coronavirus-positive people died worldwide, compared to 42,000 in the past week.
The United States has the highest national death toll with more than 167,000 fatalities, followed by Brazil (some 105,000), Mexico (55,000) and India (48,000).
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, 912,823 coronavirus cases have been confirmed in Russia, 15,498 of them fatal. In all, 722,964 patients have already recovered.