Health

Number of confirmed coronavirus cases in US passes 6-million mark

Washington, Aug 31 (efe-epa).- The number of confirmed coronavirus cases in the United States, the country hardest hit by the pandemic, surpassed the 6-million mark on Monday, according to the tally by Maryland’s Johns Hopkins University.

According to that university’s Coronavirus Resource Center website, the number of confirmed cases in the US since the start of the health emergency stood at 6,002,615 at 12.15 pm.

The total had risen to 6,009,899 a couple of hours later.

The number of cases worldwide also hit a milestone on Monday, eclipsing the 25-million threshold.

The countries that rank second through fourth on the list of confirmed cases, meanwhile, are Brazil, with 3,862,311 cases; India, with 3,621,245; and Russia, with 992,402.

The 10 countries most affected by the pandemic in terms of number of cases also include Peru (639,435), South Africa (625,056), Colombia (607,904), Mexico (595,841), Spain (462,858) and Chile (411,726), according to Johns Hopkins.

Of those 10 countries, five of them (India, the US, Brazil, Russia and Mexico) are among the world’s most populous; the main outlier has been China, which is the world’s most populous nation yet ranks just 34th in confirmed cases with 89,907 even though, according to the Worldometer reference website, it has conducted more than 90 million tests (around 8 million more than the second-placed US).

Chile, by contrast, ranks 10th in cases despite not being among the world’s 50-largest countries in population.

The main measuring stick for the coronavirus worldwide has been confirmed cases even though, according to the World Health Organization, a substantial proportion of Covid-19 cases are asymptomatic or very mild and therefore go undetected.

With respect to deaths, the US also has recorded the most worldwide (183,258), followed by Brazil (120,828), India (64,469), Mexico (64,158), the United Kingdom (41,588), Italy (35,483), France (30,640), Spain (29,094) and Peru (28,607).

China, whose population is more than 43 times larger than Peru’s, has attributed just 4,634 deaths to Covid-19.

The US states with the most confirmed coronavirus cases thus far are California (706,731), Texas (629,680), Florida (623,471) and New York (434,100), while in terms of deaths attributed to Covid-19 the state hardest hit has been New York (32,957), followed by New Jersey (15,937), California (12,939) and Texas (12,683).

The number of US deaths now far surpasses the lower end of the expected range unveiled by the White House, which in late March predicted between 100,000 and 240,000 fatalities.

Meanwhile, the University of Washington in Seattle’s Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation, whose models are often referenced by the White House, is forecasting that the number of US coronavirus deaths will surpass 255,000 by the Nov. 3 presidential election and exceed 310,000 by Dec. 1. EFE-EPA

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