Amid an ongoing resurgence across the world, the global coronavirus caseload has topped 333.5 million, while the deaths have surged to more than 5.55 million and vaccinations to over 9.68 billion, according to Johns Hopkins University.
In its latest update on Wednesday morning, the University's Center for Systems Science and Engineering (CSSE) revealed that the current global caseload and the death toll stood at 333,596,115 and 5,553,993, respectively, while the total number of vaccine doses administered has increased to 9,685,515,903.
The US continues to be the worst-hit country with the world's highest number of cases and deaths at 67,581,992 and 853,951, according to the CSSE.
The second worst hit country in terms of cases is India (37,618,271 infections and 486,761 deaths), followed by Brazil (23,229,851 infections and 621,803 deaths).
France reports record of over 400,000 new Covid cases
The Covid-19 situation continues to worsen in France, with 464,769 new cases detected in a day, it was announced by the country's public health agency on Tuesday. This broke the previous daily record of 368,149 cases.
The agency said that 3,881 Covid-19 patients were being treated in intensive care, accounting for over 70 per cent of the French health system's current capacity, Xinhua news agency reported.
On January 16, the French National Assembly adopted the vaccine pass law, which makes the pass mandatory for people over the age of 16 to enter public venues.
S.Korea reports 5,805 new Covid cases
South Korea's daily coronavirus cases jumped to over 5,000 for the first time in 20 days on Wednesday amid growing concerns over the spread of the omicron virus variant ahead of the Lunar New Year holiday.
The country added 5,805 new Covid-19 infections, including 5,431 local infections, raising the total caseload to 705,902, Yonhap news agency reported, citing the figures released by the Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency (KDCA).
The daily caseload had stayed below 5,000 since December 30, when it stood at 5,034.
The number of critically ill Covid-19 patients stood at 532 on Wednesday. The country reported 74 Covid-19 deaths, raising the death toll to 6,452. The fatality rate was 0.91 per cent. The number of imported cases was tallied at 374, bringing the total imported cases to 22,304.
Malaysia reports 3,245 new cases
Malaysia recorded 3,245 new Covid-19 infections over the past 24 hours, bringing the total number of confirmed cases in the Southeast Asian country to 2,813,934, according to health ministry.
The new infections included 274 imported cases and 2,971 local transmissions, showed data released on the health ministry's website.
An additional nine deaths from the pandemic were recorded, bringing the total death toll to 31,818, Xinhua news agency reported. The health ministry also reported 3,093 new recoveries from Covid, bringing the total number of recoveries to 2,741,355.
Other countries
The other countries with over 5 million cases are the UK (15,501,850), France (14,284,535), Russia (10,682,826), Turkey (10,682,826), Italy (9,018,425), Spain (8,518,975), Germany (8,140,498), Argentina (7,318,305) Iran (6,227,849) and Colombia (5,596,917), the CSSE figures showed.
The nations with a death toll of over 100,000 are Russia (316,168), Mexico (301,469), Peru (203,550), the UK (153,017), Indonesia (144,183), Italy (141,825), Iran (132,113), Colombia (131,268), France (128,629), Argentina (118,420), Germany (115,916), Ukraine (105,059) and Poland (102,686).
