Global coronavirus death toll exceeds 497,000 mark

WASHINGTON: The death toll from the coronavirus worldwide has exceeded 497,000, while the number of infected people has jumped to 9,903,000 in 215 countries and territories.

Besides, over 5,357,000 people have recovered from the deadly virus infection. According to world meter, so far, 496,796 people have died from the deadly virus out of 9,903,774 coronavirus cases across the world. And, 5,357,153 have recovered.

The United States is the most affected nation by the deadly coronavirus having more than 2,552,996 people infected with the virus. Of these, 127,640 have died in the country.

Brazil, the Latin American country, has the second-highest number of deaths from COVID-19. So far, 56,109 people have died of the coronavirus infection in the country while the number of cases reached 1,280,054.

The United Kingdom has the third-highest number of deaths. So far, 43,414 people have died of COVID-19 in the country out of 309,360 cases.

In Italy, 34,708 people have died and 239,961 people have been infected with coronavirus so far. France has so far recorded 162,936 coronavirus cases; of them, 29,778 people have died.

The COVID-19 was first detected in Wuhan, the capital of Hubei Province, China in December 2019. In the country of origin, 83,462 people have been infected so far. Of these, 4,634 people have died.

The total number of cases continued to increase at a rate of between 1-2% a day in the past week, down from rates above 10% in March.

Countries including China, New Zealand and Australia have seen new outbreaks in the past month, despite largely quashing local transmission.

In Beijing, where hundreds of new cases were linked to an agricultural market, testing capacity has been ramped up to 300,000 a day.

The United States, which has reported the most cases of any country at more than 2.5 million, managed to slow the spread of the virus in May, only to see it expand in recent weeks to rural areas and other places that were previously unaffected.

In some countries with limited testing capabilities, case numbers reflect a small proportion of total infections. Roughly half of the reported infections are known to have recovered.