Global Covid-19 cases approach 190 million

The global Covid-19 caseload is fast nearing the grim milestone of 190 million as the highly contagious Delta variant is spreading rapidly in different countries amid vaccination drives.

The total caseload and fatalities stand at 189,924,297 and 4,081,535 respectively as of Sunday morning, according to Johns Hopkins University (JHU).

So far, 3,596,183,765 vaccine doses have been administered across the globe.

The US, which is the world's worst-hit country in terms of both cases and deaths, has so far logged 34,067,424 cases. Besides, 608,881 people have lost their lives in the US to date.

Brazil registered 868 more Covid-19 deaths in the past 24 hours, raising its national death toll to 541,266, the health ministry said Saturday.

As many as 34,339 new cases were detected, taking the total caseload to 19,342,448, the ministry said.

Brazil currently has the world's second-highest pandemic death toll after the United States, and the third-largest caseload, after the United States and India.

The third worst-hit country, India's Covid-19 tally rose to 31,064,908 on Saturday, as 38,079 new cases were registered during the past 24 hours across the country, according to the federal health ministry's latest data.

Besides, 560 deaths due to the pandemic have been reported since Friday morning, took the total death toll to 413,091.

Overall, the number of confirmed coronavirus infections worldwide over the past seven days has increased by 3.5 mln. The world documented 0.5 mln more infections than a week before, according to TASS’ calculations.

Situation in Bangladesh

As Bangladesh continues to struggle with the deadlier 2nd wave of Covid-19, the country lost 204 more lives in 24 hours till Saturday morning, setting off growing concern among people.

The virus also infected 8,489 others during the period.

The new figures took the death tally to 17,669 and caseload to 10,92,411, according to a handout issued by the Directorate General of Health Services (DGHS).

The fresh cases were detected after testing 29,214 samples during the period which took the positivity rate to 29.06 per cent from Friday’s  28.96 per cent.

However, the fatality rate remained unchanged at 1.61 per cent during the period.