Coronavirus is continuing its spread across the world, with more than 14 million confirmed cases in 188 countries and nearly 600,000 deaths. The virus, which was first detected in the city of Wuhan, China, in late 2019, has spread quickly across the globe in the first months of 2020, reaching 13 million confirmed cases by early July. Europe and North America saw the first major outbreaks in April but as they began to ease, Latin America and Asia started seeing an exponential increase in cases.
In recent weeks, North America has seen a resurgence of infections mostly driven by new outbreaks in the US. Moreover, Latin America has now become the epicentre of the pandemic with Brazil being the worst-hit so far, with a death toll of nearly 80,000. Colombia, which has seen more than 6,000 deaths, has extended its nationwide lockdown after infections accelerated in several cities. In Asia, on the other hand, India has now surpassed one million cases and several states have re-imposed partial lockdowns just weeks after the two-month nationwide lockdown was ended.
Meanwhile, South Africa and Egypt have seen the largest outbreaks so far in Africa. But testing rates are reported to be extremely low in some parts of the continent, which could be distorting official estimates of how far the virus has spread.
Writer: Siddhant Gupta
20/07/2020
Comments