News Desk :
Death tolls from coronavirus soared 4,39,760 worldwide so far with number of cases 81,42,743 in 213 countries and territories while recovered 42,53,403, according to worldometer.
Fatalities from Covid-19 in the United States stood 1,18,321 with total cases 21,83,126, according to worldometer.
For years, viruses like the one that causes COVID-19 has been the stuff of Dr. Anthony Fauci’s nightmares.
Speaking to a digital version of an annual conference of biotechnology executives, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases said Tuesday he long expected – and hoped against – the arrival of a new respiratory virus that jumped from animals, was highly contagious, and potentially lethal. SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, he said, has more of those factors than any other disease he’s seen in his lifetime
“Now, we have something that indeed turned out to be my worst nightmare,” Fauci said.
Ebola is far deadlier, he noted, but not nearly as transmissible. And HIV has been far more lethal, killing 37 million people since the 1980s, but it has taken decades to cause such devastation. SARS-CoV-2 has swept in much more rapidly.
“In a period of 4 months, it has devastated the world,” Fauci said. “I mean, , deaths and millions and millions of infections worldwide – and it isn’t over yet.”
The most surprising thing to him about SARS-CoV-2, Fauci said, is its speed.
“First noticed at the end of December. Hit China in January. Hit the rest of the world in February. March, April, May, early June,” he said, “all of a sudden, historically, we have one of the worst pandemics we’ve ever experienced.”
The only modern disease that was worse, he said, was the 1918 flu, which was more lethal, causing upward of 50 million deaths worldwide.
Deaths from the COVID-19 epidemic in Italy climbed by 26 on Monday against 44 the day before, the Civil Protection Agency said, posting the lowest daily tally since March 2.
The daily tally of new cases also declined slightly to 303 from 338 on Sunday.
The total death toll since the outbreak came to light on Feb. 21 now stands at 34,371 the agency said, the fourth highest in the world after those of the United States, Britain and Brazil.
The number of confirmed cases amounts to 237,290, the seventh highest global tally.
People registered as currently carrying the illness fell to 25,909 from 26,274 the day before.
There were 207 people in intensive care on Monday, edging down from 209 on Sunday, maintaining a long-running decline. Of those originally infected, 177,010 were declared recovered against 176,370 a day earlier.
The agency said 2.864 million people had been tested for the virus against 2.847 million on Sunday, out of a population of around 60 million.
For days now, Spain’s daily coronavirus death toll has been on hold, generating widespread uncertainty about the real state of the epidemic that has claimed 27,136 lives with total cases 2,91,189.
The health ministry’s emergencies coordinator Fernando Simon, who for months has given a daily briefing on the pandemic’s evolution, acknowledged the “astonishment” and “confusion” generated by the figures.
On May 25, the ministry changed its method of collecting data on confirmed cases and fatalities, initially giving a daily death toll of between 50 and 100.
But the figure then fell to fewer than five per day and on some days there were no deaths at all.
Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez even told parliament there had been “no deaths” for several days, prompting a backlash from the right and the far-right who have since accused him of hiding the real number of fatalities.
