(Eagle News) — The total number of COVID-19 deaths worldwide surpassed two million as global confirmed cases reached 93.5 million, according to data from the Johns Hopkins University.
As of 3 a.m. Saturday, Jan. 16, Philippine Standard Time, the total confirmed coronavirus deaths around the world have reached 2,003,625 while COVID-19 cases reached 93,580,828.
This comes amid rising number of COVID-19 virus mutations that are more infectious than previous strains, prompting the World Health Organization to address concerns about the newly identified variants and the need to equitably distribute life-saving vaccines worldwide.
The United States still topped the list of countries with the most number of confirmed cases and virus deaths. The US has 23,441,737 confirmed cases and 390,649 deaths, according to the Johns Hopkins University tally.
After the US, the other countries which recorded the highest total virus deaths are Brazil (207,095 deaths), India (151,918 deaths), Mexico (137,916 deaths), United Kingdom (87,448 deaths), Italy (81,325 deaths), France (70,088 deaths), Russia (63,558 deaths), Iran (56,621 deaths), and Spain (53,314 deaths)
In terms of confirmed COVID-19 cases, these are the top 10 countries based on the Johns Hopkins University virus dashboard:
23,441,737 – US
10,527,683 – India
8,324,294 – Brazil
3,483,531 – Russia
3,325,636 – United Kingdom
2,930,994 – France
2,373,115 – Turkey
2,352,423 – Italy
2,252,164 – Spain
2,022,884 – Germany
The numbers on COVID-19 cases and deaths are staggering a year after the first virus case and death was first reported in Wuhan, China.
But China has largely controlled the number of COVID-19 cases a year after its first reported case.
As of Jan. 16, 2021, Saturday (as of 3:22 a.m. PST) based on the John Hopkins University worldwide COVID-19 dashboard, China has dropped to the 81st place in terms of number of COVID-19 cases with a total of only 97,448 COVID-19 cases, and 4,796 deaths.
Globally, cases continued to rise even amid vaccine roll-out.
Ironically, the United States, India, United Kingdom, and Russia which developed vaccines against COVID-19 are also the top countries which have recorded the most total number of cases and deaths to date as new COVID-19 virus variants emerge.
Ironically too, vaccines developed in China which had early on staged mass vaccinations to control virus transmission are largely mistrusted by the public based on an international survey reported by Reuters.
Citing an international survey conducted by the polling company, YouGov, it said that there was higher mistrust of vaccines made in China and Russia.
It was in January 2020, when scientists from China publicly released the initial data on the coronavirus genomic sequence that vaccine development efforts started worldwide.
(Eagle News Service)
