World’s Coronavirus Death Toll Tops 250k As Cases Exceed 3.5mn

By Staff, Agencies

The total number of Covid-19 fatalities topped 250,000, marking yet another dark milestone for the pandemic’s global death toll, as cases around the world surged past 3.5 million.

The fatality count hit 250,687 on Monday, increasing by around 3,200 deaths in the last 24 hours, while nearly 67,000 new infections were counted in the same period, bringing the global total to 3,573,864, according to data gathered by Johns Hopkins University.

The United States, which is still the top Covid-19 hot spot, and Europe drove the surge in new cases and deaths.

The bulk of the cases occurred in Europe, where outbreaks have infected in excess of 100,000 people in at least seven nations – some, like Italy and Spain, crossing 200,000 cases. The US accounted for fewer than 1,000 of the new fatalities, adding 760 between Sunday and Monday evening, the data showed. In total, the US has counted 68,442 deaths.

Though US health officials have pointed to falling numbers in some harder-hit areas of the country with optimism as a number of states prepare to lift their containment measures, a new forecast by the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation [IHME] at the University of Washington published on Monday projects nearly 135,000 Covid-19 deaths in the US by the beginning of August.

Accounting for the eased lockdowns, the new forecast puts the total fatality count far higher than 74,000, the number offered in the White House’s latest projection.