Amid an ongoing resurgence across the world, the global coronavirus caseload has surpassed the grim milestone of 300 million, while the deaths have surged to more than 5.47 million and vaccinations to over 9.33 billion, according to Johns Hopkins University.
In its latest update on Friday morning, the University's Center for Systems Science and Engineering (CSSE) revealed that the current global caseload and the death toll stood at 300,095,481 and 5,472,039, respectively, while the total number of vaccine doses administered has increased to 9,336,622,344.
The US continues to be the worst-hit country with the world's highest number of cases and deaths at 58,487,665 and 833,987, according to the CSSE.
The second worst hit country in terms of cases is India (35,109,286 infections and 482,876 deaths), followed by Brazil (22,328,252 infections and 619,654 deaths).
The other countries with over 5 million cases are the UK (14,100,303), France (11,288,704), Russia (10,420,863), Turkey (9,789,244), Germany (7,399,015), Italy (6,975,465), Spain (6,922,466), Iran (6,203,046), Argentina (6,025,303) and Colombia (5,242,672), the CSSE figures showed.
The nations with a death toll of over 100,000 are Russia (307,488), Mexico (299,842), Peru (202,904), the UK (149,993), Indonesia (144,116), Italy (138,474), Iran (131,802), Colombia (130,191), France (126,001), Argentina (117,386), Germany (113,446) and Ukraine (103,225).
Italy's reported cases top 200,000 for 1st time
For the first time since the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic in early 2020, Italy registered over 200,000 daily cases amid an ongoing resurgence fuelled by the highly-transmissible Omicron variant, according to health authorities.
In the last 24 hours, the country logged 219,441 cases, which increased the overall infection tally as of Friday morning to 6,975,465.
The country had never recorded more than 100,000 new cases in a single day until December 30, 2021. But the situation had gotten worse almost every day since then.
The Ministry of Health also announced 198 coronavirus deaths in the same 24 hour period, down from 231 a day earlier. The death toll now stands at 138,474.
The European Centre for Disease Control has declared 19 of Italy's 20 regions and autonomous provinces as "dark red" areas in terms of coronavirus infection rates, the most severe level.
The only exception is the island region of Sardinia, which is "light red", the second-most severe level in the four-colour system.
