Number of Covid-19 cases passes 3.5 million worldwide

The number of Covid-19 cases around the world yesterday passed the 3.5 million mark, with a worldometers.com tally confirming 84,004 new cases in the last 24 hours. However, the growth in new cases is finally starting to slow down – flattening the curve.

Nearly a quarter of a million people have now died from the virus, with Europe and the US currently accounting for most new cases. The US alone has had 1,188,122 cases and a very sobering 68,598 deaths. Russia, Africa and Latin America are now experiencing a rise in numbers, but the overall trend globally is a slow flattening of the famous curve.

PHOTO: www.worldometers.info/coronavirus

Even though experts agree there are likely to be far more cases than those officially confirmed, the fallout from the Covid-19 pandemic, devastating as it has been, is nowhere near the 500 million cases of Spanish flu which broke out in 1918. Still, in pandemic terms, it’s still early days in the Covid-19 story with second and third waves of infections expected, especially after the northern hemisphere’s summer.

The first official recorded death from Covid-19 was reported in Wuhan, China on January 10. Since then, the virus has gone on to claim 248,285 lives around the world (as of 10am Thai time). In the past week, new cases globally have decreased to a daily rate of 2 – 3%, a significant drop from 13% in the middle of March.

Several countries are now embarking on a gradual easing of lockdown measures, opening up businesses and attempting to jump-start their devastated economies. There is little agreement on the right or wrong way to do this, with most epidemiologists fearing a “second wave” of the virus. This is almost inevitable once restrictions start being eased. The question is how big that second wave will be and how best to keep it under control.

At this stage most international airline travel is still heavily restricted. The surge in popularity of international and budget airline travel provided the new coronavirus an easy means of spreading quickly around the globe.

SOURCE: Thai PBS World | worldometers.com