Worldwide, more than five and a half million people have now been infected with the novel corona virus. Of the 5,505,307 cases of infection identified, more than two thirds were reported from Europe and the United States, as a statement by the AFP news agency today showed.
This has doubled the number of people infected worldwide within a month, with more than a million cases added in the past eleven days alone.
2,047,401 infections and 172,824 deaths were registered in Europe. In the United States there are 1,662,768 infected and 98,223 fatalities. AFP has seen 346,188 deaths worldwide. The actual worldwide infection and victim numbers are likely to be much higher since not all affected people are tested for SARS-CoV-2.
Russia badly affected
The country most affected worldwide after the USA and Brazil is Russia. The highest daily death toll since the outbreak in the country was recorded there today. According to health authorities, 174 people died of Covid-19 within 24 hours. The official number of victims rose to 3,807, a total of 362,342 infections were detected.
The official number of coronavirus deaths in Russia is relatively low in relation to the number of infections. Critics therefore accuse the authorities of downplaying the pandemic.
The health authorities point out that they only count dead people as coronavirus deaths, for whom the novel coronavirus was clearly the cause of death. In other countries such as Germany, all dead people are included in the balance sheet that were infected.
