Global Covid-19 deaths soar to 993,438
The novel coronavirus has killed at least 993,438 people because the outbreak emerged in China last December, according to a tally from official sources published by AFP at 1100 GMT on Saturday.
At least 32,622,490 cases of coronavirus have already been registered. Of these, at least 22,360,200 are now considered recovered.
The tallies, using data collected by AFP from national authorities and information from the World Health Organisation (WHO), probably reflect only a fraction of using the number of infections.
Many countries are testing only symptomatic or the most serious cases.
On Friday, 9,050 new deaths and 325,900 new cases were recorded worldwide.
Based on latest reports, the countries with new deaths were Argentina with 3,901 - a sharp increase due to a change in its counting method - followed by India with 1,089 and america with 887.
The United States may be the worst-hit country with 203,782 deaths from 7,033,925 cases. At least 2,727,335 people have been declared recovered.
After the US, the hardest-hit countries are Brazil with 140,537 deaths from 4,689,613 cases, India with 93,379 deaths from 5,903,932 cases, Mexico with 75,844 deaths from 720,858 cases, and Britain with 41,936 deaths from 423,236 cases.
The country with the highest number of deaths compared to its population is Peru with 97 fatalities per 100,000 inhabitants, followed by Belgium with 86, Bolivia 67, Spain 67, and Brazil 66.
China - excluding Hong Kong and Macau - must date declared 85,337 cases (15 new since Friday), including 4,634 deaths and 80,536 recoveries.
Latin America and the Caribbean overall have 338,254 deaths from 9,095,347 cases, Europe 229,335 deaths from 5,199,762 infections, and the United States and Canada 213,075 deaths from 7,184,066 cases.
Asia reported 132,856 deaths from 7,762,046 cases, the Middle East 44,120 deaths from 1,902,535 cases, Africa 34,853 deaths from 1,447,328 cases, and Oceania 945 deaths from 31,410 cases.
Due to corrections by national authorities or late publication of data, the figures updated over the past 24 hours may well not correspond exactly to the prior day's tallies. - AFP
