The World Health Organization on Wednesday said that green shoots of hope have emerged despite the world crossing a grim milestone of over 8 million deaths due to coronavirus pandemic. The director general of the global health organization added that the developments in the past couple of months have shown that together through global solidarity, humanity can overcome this Pandemic.
Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus’s comments came on a day when the global tally of the Covid-19 infections crossed the 8.3 million mark with 60 thousand fresh cases registered across the globe in the last 24 hours, as per Worldometer.com. What is reassuring in a way that more than half of these patients—435,027—have already been cured. However, the total deaths due to the virus are nearing the 450,000 mark.
“There have been more than 435,000 deaths and in the Americas, Africa and South Asia; COVID-19 cases are still rapidly rising. However, there are green shoots of hope, which show that together through global solidarity, humanity can overcome this pandemic,” Ghebreyesus said.
He underlined the dramatic rise in spread of the disease, which has affected 213 countries or territories in the past three months after its outbreak was first seen in China.
“The world has now recorded more than 8 million cases of #COVID19. In the first two months, 85,000 cases were reported. In the past two months 6 million cases have been reported,” the WHO director-general added.
Coronavirus has infected 1,066 people per million of the world’s population and recorded a global fatality rate of 57.4/million as per Worldometers.com. The United States of America remains the country with the most number of cases at over 2.2 million as per the latest data available on the website.India has the fourth most number of cases– 354,065– behind USA (2,213,505), Brazil (929,149) and Russia (553,301). Pakistan, with 154,769 cases, is the only other south Asian country to have registered more than a 100,000 cases. Bangladesh currently has 98,489 positive cases.
The WHO has also expressed concern over the new outbreak of the disease in China. China has reported 31 more cases, taking the total to 137 in the past six days. Beijing has closed schools and restricted air travel from the capital by cancelling more than 1,200 flights with an aim to halt the fresh outbreak, which is being linked to the city’s largest wholesale food market.