Online Desk :
Amid the global scare over the superspreading Omicron, the overall number of Coronavirus cases has now surged past 284 million.
According to Johns Hopkins University (JHU), the total case count mounted to 284, 467,726 while the death toll from the virus reached 5,421,527 Thursday morning.
The US has recorded 53,659,688 cases to date and more than 822,891 people have died so far from the virus in the country, as per the university data.
More than a year after the vaccine was rolled out, new cases of Covid-19 in the U.S. have soared to their highest level on record at over 265,000 per day on average, a surge driven largely by the highly contagious omicron variant, according to AP.
New cases per day have more than doubled over the past two weeks, eclipsing the old mark of 250,000, set in mid-January, according to data kept by Johns Hopkins University.
The picture is grim elsewhere around the world, especially in Europe, with World Health Organization chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus saying he is worried about omicron combining with the delta variant to produce a “tsunami” of cases. That, he said, will put “immense pressure on exhausted health workers and health systems on the brink of collapse.”
Brazil, which has been experiencing a new wave of cases since January, registered 22,269,031 cases as of Wednesday, while its Covid death toll rose to 619,095.
India’s Covid-19 tally rose to 34,808,886 on Wednesday while its Covid death toll rose to 480,592.
