The novel coronavirus has killed at least 4,529,715 people since the outbreak emerged in China in December 2019, according to a tally from official sources compiled by AFP at 1000 GMT on Thursday.
At least 218,339,530 cases of coronavirus have been registered. The vast majority have recovered, though some have continued to experience symptoms weeks or even months later.
The figures are based on daily reports provided by health authorities in each country. They exclude revisions made by other statistical organisations, which show that the number of deaths is much higher.
The World Health Organisation estimates that the pandemic’s overall toll could be two to three times higher than official records due to the excess mortality that is directly and indirectly linked to COVID-19.
A large number of the less severe or asymptomatic cases also remain undetected, despite intensified testing in many countries.
On Wednesday, 11,476 new deaths and 705,591 new cases were recorded worldwide.
Based on the latest reports, the countries with the highest figures for new deaths were the United States with 2,178 new deaths, followed by Mexico with 1,177.
The United States is the worst-affected country with 642,081 deaths from 39,396,408 cases. After the US, the hardest-hit countries are Brazil with 581,150 deaths from 20,804,215 cases, India with 439,529 deaths from 32,857,937 cases, Mexico with 260,503 deaths from 3,369,747 cases, and Peru with 198,329 deaths from 2,151,010 cases.
The country with the highest number of deaths compared to its population is Peru with 602 fatalities per 100,000 inhabitants, followed by Hungary with 311, Bosnia-Herzegovina with 299, the Republic of North Macedonia with 286, the Czech Republic with 284 and Montenegro with 276.
Latin America and the Caribbean overall has 1,442,403 deaths from 43,342,211 cases, Europe 1,252,868 deaths from 63,369,067 infections, and Asia 783,439 deaths from 50,426,074 cases.
The United States and Canada has reported 669,029 deaths from 40,897,005 cases, Africa 197,001 deaths from 7,822,967 cases, Middle East 183,234 deaths from 12,357,445 cases, and Oceania 1,741 deaths from 124,769 cases.
As a result of corrections by national authorities or late publication of data, the figures updated over the past 24 hours may not correspond exactly to the previous day’s tallies.
(AFP)
