The global coronavirus death toll has passed 700,000 – with a person dying every 15 seconds from the virus.
The United States, Brazil, India and Mexico leading the rise in fatalities.
Nearly 5,900 people are dying every 24 hours from Covid-19 on average, according to Reuters calculations.
That equates to 247 people per hour, or one person every 15 seconds.
The US and Latin America are the new epicenters of the pandemic, with both struggling to curb the spread of
the virus.
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Coronavirus was initially slower to reach Latin America, which is home to about 640 million people, than much of the world.
But officials have since struggled to control its spread because of the region’s poverty and densely packed cities.
More than 100 million people across Latin America and the
Caribbean live in slums, according to the United Nations Human Settlements Programme.
(Image: AFP via Getty Images)
Many have jobs in the informal sector with little in the way of a social safety net and have continued to work throughout the pandemic.
The United States, home to around 330 million people, has
also been battered by the virus despite being one of the richest nations in the world.
The US government’s top infectious disease expert, Dr Anthony Fauci, yesterday said states with high coronavirus case counts should reconsider imposing lockdown restrictions.
Even in parts of the world that had appeared to have curbed
the spread of the virus, countries have recently seen single-day records in new cases, signaling the battle is far from over.
Australia, Japan, Hong Kong, Bolivia, Sudan, Ethiopia, Bulgaria, Belgium, Uzbekistan and Israel all recently had record increases in cases.
We’ll be bringing you the very latest updates, pictures and video on this breaking news story.
