More than 893,000 cases of Covid-19 were recorded worldwide on Friday, mainly due to the epidemic outbreak that overwhelms India, a record figure since the start of the pandemic, according to a count of l ‘AFP Saturday at 10 a.m. local time from official sources.
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More than a third of these contaminations were indeed deplored in India, which announced 332,730 new contaminations on Friday, then 346,786 on Saturday, figures also unpublished for a single country so far. Prior to this week, the highest number of officially reported cases stood at 819,000 on January 8.
Over a week, more than 5.5 million cases have been recorded worldwide, including almost 2 million in India. This country has also recorded in the last 24 hours a record of deaths, with 2,624 dead. The pandemic has killed nearly 190,000 people there.
The other countries currently deploring the most new infections are the United States (490,000 cases in one week), Brazil (459,000) and Turkey (404,000).
The threshold of 150 million cases worldwide is expected to be reached next week. According to an AFP count from official reports on Saturday at 10 a.m. GMT, 145,544,646 cases have been recorded worldwide since the start of the pandemic in December 2019 in China.
Coronavirus: update on the pandemic
New measures, new reports and highlights: an update on the latest developments in the Covid-19 pandemic around the world.
Germany: tightened restrictions
Germany entered a new phase of lockdown on its public life on Saturday including national curfews after the passage of a controversial law, but deemed “urgent” by Angela Merkel to break the third wave of the pandemic.
While many countries, such as Italy, Switzerland, Belgium, have programmed the upcoming easing of restrictions, Europe’s largest economy is going against the grain by activating what it calls “an emergency brake. Planned in the reform of the law on protection against infections.
Berlin classifies India as a high-risk zone
Germany will drastically reduce passenger traffic with India, classified from Sunday as a high-risk area due to a new variant of the coronavirus that has appeared in this country, Health Minister Jens said on Saturday. Spahn.
“The new virus mutation discovered in India worries us a lot. In order not to endanger our vaccination campaign, we must significantly reduce the traffic of travelers with India ”, justified the minister in an interview with the Funke media group.
Kuwait suspends flights with India
Kuwait has announced the suspension of direct commercial flights to and from India, adding to the list of countries that have taken action targeting New Delhi, overwhelmed by an outbreak of the coronavirus pandemic.
More than three million deaths in total
The pandemic of the new coronavirus has killed at least 3,088,103 people around the world, according to a report established by AFP from official sources on Friday in the middle of the day.
The United States is the country with the highest death toll with 571,199 deaths, followed by Brazil (386,416), Mexico (214,504), India (189,544) and the United Kingdom (127 385).
These figures are globally underestimated. They are based on daily reports from national health authorities, without including reassessments based on statistical bases.
Cap of one billion people vaccinated
The milestone of one billion doses of anti-Covid vaccines administered across the world should be crossed at the end of the day on Saturday, according to a count made by AFP from official figures.