Global Covid cases near 194 million

Coronavirus. Creative Commons

Dhaka, Jul 25 -- The global Covid-19 caseload is inching closer to the 194-million mark, as the second wave of the pandemic continues to devastate countries across the world even amid the  mass inoculations efforts.

The total caseload and fatalities stand at 193,639,328 and 4,151,435, respectively, as of Sunday morning, according to Johns Hopkins University (JHU).

So far, 3,815,101,425 vaccine doses have been administered across the globe.

The US, which is the world's worst-hit country in terms of both cases and deaths, has so far logged 34,427,939 cases. Besides, 610,834 people have lost their lives in the US to date, as per the JHU data.

Brazil registered 1,108 more Covid-19 deaths in the past 24 hours, raising its national death toll to 549,448, the Ministry of Health reported on Saturday.

Additionally, another 38,091 new cases were reported in the same 24 hours, bringing the total caseload to 19,670,534.

Brazil currently has the world's second-highest pandemic death toll after the United States and the third-largest caseload after the United States and India.

The third worst-hit country, India's COVID-19 tally rose to 31,332,159 on Saturday as 39,097 new cases were registered during the past 24 hours across the country, showed the federal health ministry's latest data.

Besides, 546 deaths due to the pandemic since Friday morning took the death toll to 420,016.

Situation in Bangladesh

Although the country saw well below 200 fatalities for three consecutive days as of Friday, it came close to the grim landmark again as 195 people died of Covid-19 in 24 hours till Saturday morning.

Bangladesh recorded 6,780 new cases of infections during the period after testing 20,827 samples.

With Covid's Delta variant spreading fast, the country's fatalities had been hovering at nearly 200 for the last two weeks. It reported the highest daily Covid-19 fatality number – 231 – on July 19 and 13,768 infections on the 12th of the month.

There have been 1,153,344 infections and 19,046 coronavirus deaths here since the pandemic started, according to a handout issued by the Directorate General of Health Services (DGHS).

Meanwhile, the daily test positivity rate increased to 32.55 % from Friday's 31.05%, when the World Health Organization (WHO) recommends a 5% or below rate.

The death rate increased to 1.65% after remaining static at 1.64%for some days. - UNB