The global death toll due to COVID-19 has now passed three million, according to a tally from Johns Hopkins University. The European Union and Economic Area account for at least 645,412 deaths, according to the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC). The US is the country with the highest number of reported deaths due to COVID-19 with more than a half a million. The country is followed by Brazil, Mexico and India. The United Kingdom, Italy and France have all recorded more than 100,000 deaths due to the virus. But the death toll is likely much higher than the official counts due to early testing problems and underreporting cases at the beginning of the crisis. It has been one year and four months since the first reports of the virus emerged from China. The stark global death toll comes at a time that the epidemic is worsening in several countries amid the emergence of new and more transmissible variants. India recently reported more than 200,000 new coronavirus cases in a day. Several European countries have been struggling to contain infections as the variant first detected in the UK spreads rapidly. Meanwhile, the World Health Organization warned that the trajectory of the pandemic was growing. The World Health Organization (WHO) said the European region, which includes some central Asian countries, recently reached at least one million deaths. The European branch of the international organization warned that the situation in the region was "serious" with 1.6 million new cases are reported every week. Hospitalizations remain high across the region even as transmission has slowed in some countries, WHO Europe regional director Hans Kluge said. Deaths in people over the age of 80 have fallen to their lowest level due to high uptake of vaccines in that age group, however. Once again, Kluge called for countries to use public health measures to drive down virus infections. In Washington, the United States of America has reported new 74,834 confirmed cases of Novel Coronavirus (COVID-19), in addition to 834 deaths. Statistics posted by various US centers for disease control and prevention indicated here today that the overall tally of the infections, across the US, stood at 31,306,928 cases, while the toll of deaths, due to the virus, stood at 562,296. In Moscow, Russia on Saturday reported 9,321 new coronavirus cases over the past 24 hours, including 2,822 in Moscow, taking the national tally to 4,693,469. The country also reported another 398 deaths, raising the official toll to 105,193, Reuters reported. In Abu Dhabi, the UAE Ministry of Health and Prevention (MoHAP) announced that it conducted 214,765 additional COVID-19 tests over the past 24 hours, using state-of-the-art medical testing equipment, as WAM reported. As part of its intensified testing campaign, MoHAP announced 1,958 new coronavirus cases, bringing the total number of recorded cases in the UAE to 495,224. The MoHAP also announced 3 deaths due to COVID-19 complications, bringing the total number of deaths in the country to 1,550. The UAE Health Ministry also noted that an additional 1,545 individuals had fully recovered from COVID-19, bringing the total number of recoveries to 478,063. In Cairo, Egypt recorded, during the past 24 hours, 841 new infections with the Coronavirus "Covid-19" and 42 deaths. Egyptian Ministry of Health stated in a statement Saturday, that the total number of coronavirus infections reached 214,639 as the total deaths reached 12,653 deaths and 162170 recoveries. — Agencies
