Coronavirus cases accelerating sharply since beginning of July

Paris: The Coronavirus pandemic, which has killed more than 565,000 people out of nearly 13 million registered cases worldwide, has been accelerating sharply since the start of July, according to a count carried out by AFP from official sources.

The three biggest daily worldwide increases in new cases were seen on Saturday (more than 230,000), Friday (more than 225,000) and Thursday (nearly 220,000).

Since July 1, nearly 2.5 million new cases have been officially declared, a record level since the outbreak was first reported in China in December.

The number of declared cases worldwide has doubled in just a month and a half.

The United States (3,247,782 cases), Brazil (1,839,850), India (849,553), Russia (727,162) and Peru (322,710) account for more than half of the global total.

Worldwide, a total of at least 12,736,737 infections, including 565,151 deaths, have been recorded.

Europe is the most affected continent in terms of fatalities, with 202,396 out of 3,355,128 cases while the hardest-hit country the United States has registered 134,815 deaths.

President Donald Trump appeared on Saturday for the first time publicly wearing a mask, as more than 66,000 new cases were recorded in the United States, according to the Johns Hopkins University, a new daily record.

Latin America and the Caribbean is the region where the disease is surging the most, with more than 76,000 new cases registered on July 11 (compared with just over 70,000 in the United States and Canada, nearly 40,000 in Asia, 17,500 in Africa and 16,000 in Europe).

On Friday, the World Health Organization said it was "still" possible to control the situation if "rapid action" was taken to deal with outbreaks.

The number of diagnosed cases still reflects only a fraction of the actual number of infections. Some countries test only severe cases, others use them primarily for tracing, and many poor countries have limited testing capacity.

Singapore's COVID-19 cases reached 45,961 on Sunday after 178 new infections, comprising mostly migrant workers living in dormitories, were detected, according to the health ministry.

Among the new infections, 177 are migrant workers living in dormitories. There is one community infection of a Singaporean while another is an imported case, said the Ministry of Health (MOH).

On Saturday, one imported case of an Indian national who returned to Singapore from India on July 6 was reported.

The work pass holder was placed on a 14-day stay-home notice upon arrival, and was tested while serving her notice. She is a work pass holder who is currently employed in Singapore.

Currently, there are 192 confirmed cases who are still in hospital. Of these, most are stable or improving, and 1 is in critical condition in the intensive care unit, the MOH said on late Saturday.

It said 3,539 patients are isolated and cared for at community facilities.

Pakistan's COVID-19 caseload has reached 248,872 with 2,521 new patients in the last 24 hours, while the death toll climbed to 5,197, the health ministry said on Sunday.

The Ministry of National Health Services said that the Coronavirus recoveries were increasing in the country as about 63 per cent of the total infected patients have recovered so far.

It said that the number of recovered people reached 156,700.

The ministry said that 2,521 new cases surfaced during the last 24 hours, taking the tally to 248,872.

Maximum 103,836 cases were detected in Sindh, 86,556 in Punjab, 30,078 in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa, 14,023 in Islamabad, 11,157 in Balochistan, 1,658 in Gilgit-Baltistan and 1,564 in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir.

The death toll reached 5,197 after 74 more Coronavirus patients died. Another 2,118 were in critical condition.

So far a total of 1,562,638 tests were conducted across the country, including 24,211 in the last 24 hours.

South Korea has reported 44 additional cases of the Coronavirus over the past 24-hours, maintaining an uptick in new infections in the greater Seoul area and central cities.

The additional figures released Sunday took the country's total to 13,417 with 289 deaths. The Korea Centres for Disease Control and Prevention says 21 of the newly reported cases were local transmissions, all of them recorded either in the densely populated Seoul metropolitan area or two central cities. The agency says the 23 other cases were linked to international arrivals. South Korea has been reporting roughly 30-60 cases every day since it eased social distancing rules in early May.