Rome: The number of confirmed coronavirus cases worldwide topped 20 million, more than half of them from the United States, India and Brazil, as Russia on Tuesday became the first country to register a vaccine against the virus.
Russian President Vladimir Putin announced the registration at a government meeting and added that one of his two adult daughters had already been inoculated. She’s feeling well and has high number of antibodies, he said.
It took six months or so to get to 10 million cases after the virus first appeared in central China late last year. It took just over six weeks for that number to double.
An AP analysis of data through August 9 showed the US, India and Brazil together accounted for nearly two-thirds of all reported infections since the world hit 15 million coronavirus cases on July 22.
Health officials believe the actual number of people infected with the virus is much higher than that tally kept by Johns Hopkins University, given testing limitations and that as many as 40 per cent of those with the virus show no symptoms.
In Europe, countries that appeared to have gotten their outbreaks under control during nationwide lockdowns and lifted many public restrictions worked to prevent a resurgence of the virus. Finland joined France and Germany in announcing it would test travelers from at-risk countries upon arrival. Spain, which along with Italy was hardest hit when the virus first exploded on the continent, now has the most confirmed cases in western Europe at nearly 323,000.
Outside Europe, infection rates are exponentially higher. In the US, which so far has more than 5 million confirmed cases, the daily average has decreased since July 22nd, but remains high at over 53,000.
South Africa has more than a half-million cases. In the country with the world’s largest number of HIV-positive people, the virus has disrupted the supply of antiretroviral drugs that a United Nations agency says could lead to 500,000 additional AIDS-related deaths.
In the 45 days it took reported coronavirus cases worldwide to double to 20 million, the number of reported virus deaths climbed to 736,191 from 499,506, according to the Johns Hopkins count, an average of more than 5,200 a day.
About one-fifth of reported deaths, or more than 163,000, have been in the US, the most in the world.
New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said on Tuesday that authorities found four cases of the coronavirus in one Auckland household from an unknown source, the first cases of local transmission in the country in 102 days.
In Japan, where outbreaks have been widening as officials urge people to consider this year’s summer holidays special and stay home, the rate of positive tests in Tokyo, the country’s worst hit region, has been climbing but remains at 7 per cent.
Vietnam went from having reported no confirmed deaths and very few cases to battling fresh outbreaks that emerged in the seaside city of Danang.
Meanwhile, outbreaks in mainland China and semi-autonomous Hong Kong declined, with the number of new community infections in China falling to 13, all in the northwestern region of Xinjiang. Hong Kong counted 69 new cases. (AP)