Spotlight: World braces for surge in COVID-19 cases as global death toll nears 70,000

BEIJING. KAZINFORM There are now nearly 1.3 million cases of the novel coronavirus with close to 70,000 deaths reported around the world as the pandemic rages.

As of 0300 GMT Monday, nations and regions reported a total of 69,444 deaths from COVID-19, along with 1,273,990 confirmed cases, while more than 260,000 people have recovered, an interactive map maintained by Johns Hopkins University's Center for Systems Science and Engineering showed, Xinhua reports.

SURGING CASES, DEATHS

The United States recorded more than 1,200 deaths from COVID-19 in the past day, bringing the death toll in the country to more than 9,600, Johns Hopkins University said Sunday evening.

There are more than 337,000 confirmed infections in the United States, said the Baltimore-based university.

In Europe, France has registered more than 8,000 deaths from COVID-19 since the outbreak of the epidemic, the Health Ministry announced on Sunday.

The disease claimed 357 lives in hospitals in the last 24 hours, taking the death toll in hospitals to 5,889. In addition, the counting by elderly nursing homes across the country showed that there were 2,189 deaths since March 1, the ministry said in a press release.

Around 100,000 infections with the new coronavirus have been registered in Germany, with more than 1,500 deaths.

In Asia, as of Sunday, 143 new cases of COVID-19 were recorded in Japan's Tokyo, a record daily high for the capital, bringing the total to 1,034, with the country's Health Ministry and local governments saying that nationwide cases had risen to 3,531 as of Sunday afternoon.

India's Health Ministry on Sunday evening said the death toll from COVID-19 in India rose to 83 and the total number of confirmed cases in the country reached 3,577.

In South Africa, the nation hardest hit by the coronavirus on the African continent, the total number of confirmed COVID-19 cases had risen to 1,655 with the death toll standing at 11, Health Minister Zweli Mkhize said on Sunday.

In Latin America, Brazil's Health Ministry said on Sunday the country's death toll from COVID-19 had climbed to 486 as 11,130 people tested positive of the coronavirus disease.

In the past 24 hours, 54 patients died, up 12.5 percent compared with the day before, and 852 new infections were detected, placing the mortality rate at 4.4 percent, said the authorities.