Global coronavirus cases surpass 5m as Latin America infections surge
Global coronavirus cases have now topped 5m, with Latin America overtaking the US and Europe to report the highest number of daily cases.
The milestone marks a new stage of the pandemic, following the first peak in China followed by an explosion in cases in the US and Europe.
Johns Hopkins University’s data tracker has put the exact number of global coronavirus cases at 5,000,561. Infections have grown by around 1m cases roughly every two weeks since 1 April.
Latin America saw about a third of the 91,000 cases reported earlier this week. The US and Europe each contributed about 20 per cent of the total.
And Brazil is so far the worst affected Latin country. Its outbreak has now surpassed those in Germany, France and the UK to become the third largest behind the US and Russia.
And its daily coronavirus case count is only behind that of the US.
Cases first appeared in Wuhan, China, at the end of December 2019 before spreading to Europe and the US, and now Latin America.
The last 24 hours have seen 106,000 new cases reported, the highest daily total so far.
The US still has the highest number of confirmed cases at 1,551,853.
Coronavirus has now infected more people than the annual total of severe flu cases, according to the World Health Organization (WHO). The WHO estimates severe flu cases number between 3m and 5m each year.
And at least 326,000 people have now died from coronavirus. However, due to limited testing the true death toll is believed to be up to 10 times as high. Over half of the recorded deaths were recorded in European countries.
However, many countries are now looking to reopen schools and workplaces as lockdowns begin to ease even as global coronavirus cases increase.
Japan is now looking to lift the state of emergency in Osaka and two other prefectures, where coronavirus is slowing. Lockdown measures will stay in place in Tokyo and Hokkaido’s prefectures, however.
Prime Minister Shinzo Abe lifted lockdowns in all but eight of Japan’s 47 prefectures last week.