Online Desk :
The overall global number of coronavirus cases has surged past 270 million amid the race of scientists to learn about its Omicron variant’s transmissibility and severity.
According to Johns Hopkins University (JHU), the total case count mounted to 270,126,616 while the death toll from the virus reached 5,305,655 on Monday morning.
The US has recorded 49,919,637 cases so far and more than 797,345 people have died from the virus in the country, the university data shows.
Brazil, which has been experiencing a new wave of cases since January, registered 22,177,059 cases as of Monday, while its Covid death toll rose to 616,457.
India has registered 7,774 new cases of Covid-19 during the past 24 hours, bringing the total to 34,690,510, the country’s health ministry data revealed on Sunday.
The ministry also reported 306 more deaths during the same period, taking the total death toll to 475,434.
India also reported two more cases of the Omicron variant (B.1.1.529) on Sunday, taking the country’s tally of the new variant to 35, officials said.
Meanwhile, Britain faces a “tidal wave” of infections from the Omicron coronavirus variant, and announced a huge increase in booster vaccinations to strengthen defences against it, warned Prime Minister Boris Johnson on Sunday.
Another 633 Omicron cases have been confirmed in Britain, the biggest daily increase since the Covid-19 variant was detected in the country, taking the total cases found in the country to 1,898, British health authorities said on Saturday.
Britain reports 54,073 new coronavirus cases, bringing the total number of coronavirus cases in the country to 10,771,444, according to official figures released on Saturday.
The country also reported a further 132 coronavirus-related deaths. The total number of coronavirus-related deaths in Britain now stands at 146,387, with 7,413 COVID-19 patients still in hospital.
The chief medical officers of England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland said the 1of the highly transmissible new strain “adds additional and rapidly increasing risk to the public and health care services” at a time when Covid-19 is already widespread. They recommended raising the alert level from 3 to 4 on a 5-point scale. The top level, 5, indicates authorities think the healthcare system is about to be overwhelmed.
The doctors said early evidence shows Omicron is spreading much faster than the currently dominant delta variant, and that vaccines offer less protection against it. British officials say Omicron is likely to replace delta as the dominant strain in the UK within days.
