Global coronavirus cases to soon surpass 30 million - Reuters tally

[snoop1130]

Global coronavirus cases to soon surpass 30 million - Reuters tally

By Jane Wardell

 

Medical workers in protective suits attend to people lining up for nucleic acid testing at a residential compound, following imported coronavirus disease (COVID-19) infections from neighbouring Myanmar, in the border city of Ruili, Dehong prefecture, Yunnan province, China September 16, 2020. Picture taken September 16, 2020. cnsphoto via REUTERS

 

(Reuters) - Global coronavirus cases are expected to pass 30 million on Thursday, according to a Reuters tally, with the pandemic showing no signs of slowing.

 

India was firmly in focus as the latest epicentre, although North and South America combined accounted for almost half of the global cases.

 

Global new daily case numbers reached record levels in recent days and deaths neared 1 million as the international race to develop and market a vaccine heated up.

 

The official number of global coronavirus cases is now more than five times the number of severe influenza illnesses recorded annually, according to World Health Organization data.

 

Around the world, there have been almost 1 million deaths, considered a lagging indicator given the two-week incubation period of the virus. That has well exceeded the upper range of 290,000 to 650,000 annual deaths linked to influenza.

 

India on Wednesday became only the second country in the world, after the United States, to record more than 5 million cases.

 

The south Asian nation, the world's second most populous country, has been reporting more new daily cases than the United States since mid-August and accounts for just over 16% of global known cases.

 

The United States has about 20% of all global cases, although it has just 4% of the world's population. Brazil, the third worst-hit country, accounts for roughly 15% of global cases.

 

It took 18 days for global cases to surge from 25 million to more than 30 million. It took 20 days for the world to go from 20 million to 25 million and 19 days to go from 15 million to 20 million.

 

The global rate of new daily cases is slowing, reflecting progress in constraining the disease in many countries, despite a few big surges.

 

Health experts stress that official data almost certainly under-reports both infections and deaths, particularly in countries with limited testing capacity.

 

The race to develop and bring to market a novel coronavirus vaccine has grown increasingly frenetic in recent weeks with about 200 candidates in development globally.

 

U.S. President Donald Trump has said his country could have a vaccine ready for distribution before the U.S. election on Nov. 3, while a Chinese health official this week said China may have a vaccine ready for public use as early as November.

 

While the trajectory of the coronavirus still falls far short of the 1918 Spanish flu, which infected an estimated 500 million people, killing at least 10% of them, experts worry the available data is underplaying the true impact of the pandemic.

 

- © Copyright Reuters 2020-09-17

 

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[nobodysfriend]

14 hours ago, snoop1130 said:

It took 18 days for global cases to surge from 25 million to more than 30 million. It took 20 days for the world to go from 20 million to 25 million and 19 days to go from 15 million to 20 million

That is linear growth . It will probably continue like this . And this is just the known cases , the ones found by testing ...

Even with an effective vaccine available , it will go on for a long time ...

Lockdowns destroy economies , so , in the long run , there is no other way than opening up again ...

We need to learn to live with it and adapt our behavior ( masks , clean hands often etc ) , it won't be gone anytime soon .

[Syduan]

3 hours ago, nobodysfriend said:

That is linear growth . It will probably continue like this . And this is just the known cases , the ones found by testing ...

Even with an effective vaccine available , it will go on for a long time ...

Lockdowns destroy economies , so , in the long run , there is no other way than opening up again ...

We need to learn to live with it and adapt our behavior ( masks , clean hands often etc ) , it won't be gone anytime soon .

Like good little sheep.

[Tounge Thaied]

Keep testing... we'll have a pandemic forever... that's a fact. 

[Stargeezr]

Into the mix  there are the anti maskers, and anti vaccers , plus those

red  necks who are anti everything.  The numbers will just keep increasing.

  Also the election crowds in the USA will be another source of more

cases.  Good luck this Winter.

Geezer

[Tounge Thaied]

59 deaths in 70,000,000 people. That's just about a 0.00008% chance of dying of Covid 19. If you are an epidemiologist doing a health risk analysis, this illness wouldn't even factor in... would never even be considered.