Global Covid-19 caseload tops 132.2m

Democracy activist Lee Cheuk-Yan speaks outside China's Liaison Office in Hong Kong on 28 December 2020, during a protest calling on China to free a group of Hong Kong democracy activists facing trial in China, after they attempted to flee the territory by speedboat to Taiwan last August, as well as Chinese citizen journalist Zhang Zhan (top L poster) who was jailed for four years for her livestream reporting from Wuhan as the Covid-19 outbreak unfurledAFP

The overall global Covid-19 caseload has topped 132.2 million, while the deaths have surged to more than 2.87 million, according to the Johns Hopkins University.

In its latest update on Wednesday morning, the University’s Center for Systems Science and Engineering (CSSE) revealed that the current global caseload and death toll stood at 132,293,566 and 2,871,642, respectively.

The US is the worst-hit country with the world’s highest number of cases and deaths at 30,845,915 and 556,509, respectively, according to the CSSE.

Brazil follows in the second place with 13,100,580 cases and 336,947 fatalities.

The other countries with more than two million confirmed coronavirus cases are India (12,686,049), France (4,902,025), Russia (4,546,307), the UK (4,379,033), Italy (3,686,707), Turkey (3,579,185), Spain (3,317,948), Germany (2,909,902), Colombia (2,468,236), Poland (2,456,709), Argentina (2,428,029) and Mexico (2,256,509), the CSSE figures showed.

In terms of deaths, Mexico comes in the third place with 204,985 fatalities.

Nations with a death toll of over 50,000 are India (165,547), the UK (127,126), Italy (111,747), Russia (99,431), France (97,431), Germany (77,245), Spain (75,911), Colombia (64,524), Iran (63,506), Argentina (56,634), Poland (55,065), Peru (53,138) and South Africa (53,032).