Global Covid-19 cases top 232.7 million

The novel coronavirus has killed at least 4,762,596 people since the outbreak emerged in China in December 2019, according to a tally from official sources compiled by AFP at 1000 GMT on Wednesday. 

At least 232,788,940 cases of coronavirus have been registered. 

The vast majority have recovered, though some have continued to experience symptoms weeks or even months later. 

The figures are based on daily reports provided by health authorities in each country. 

They exclude revisions made by other statistical organisations, which show that the number of deaths is much higher. 

The World Health Organization estimates that the pandemic’s overall toll could be two to three times higher than official records, due to the excess mortality that is directly and indirectly linked to Covid-19. 

A large number of the less severe or asymptomatic cases also remain undetected, despite intensified testing in many countries. 

On Tuesday, 8,810 new deaths and 449,104 new cases were recorded worldwide.

Based on latest reports, the countries with the most new deaths were United States with 2,070 new deaths, followed by Russia with 857 and Brazil with 793. 

The United States is the worst-affected country with 692,975 deaths from 43,277,743 cases. 

After the US, the hardest-hit countries are Brazil with 595,446 deaths from 21,381,790 cases, India with 447,751 deaths from 33,716,451 cases, Mexico with 276,376 deaths from 3,645,599 cases, and Russia with 206,388 deaths from 7,487,138 cases. 

The country with the highest number of deaths compared to its population is Peru with 605 fatalities per 100,000 inhabitants, followed by Bosnia-Herzegovina with 321, Republic of North Macedonia with 318, Hungary with 312, Montenegro with 305 and Bulgaria with 297. 

Latin America and the Caribbean overall has 1,486,581 deaths from 44,847,403 cases, Europe 1,307,611 deaths from 67,503,094 infections, and Asia 837,839 deaths from 53,785,110 cases. 

The United States and Canada has reported 720,691 deaths from 44,891,119 cases, Africa 209,613 deaths from 8,260,421 cases, Middle East 198,128 deaths from 13,326,224 cases, and Oceania 2,133 deaths from 175,572 cases. 

As a result of corrections by national authorities or late publication of data, the figures updated over the past 24 hours may not correspond exactly to the previous day’s tallies.