Amid an ongoing Covid-19 resurgence across the world, the global caseload has topped 340.4 million, while the deaths have surged to more than 5.57 million, 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 340,436,494 and 5,573,087, respectively, while the total number of vaccine doses administered has increased to 9,739,772,480.
The US continues to be the worst-hit country with the world's highest number of cases and deaths at 69,270,650 and 860,145, according to the CSSE.
The second worst hit country in terms of cases is India (38,218,773 infections and 487,693 deaths), followed by Brazil (23,595,178 infections and 622,476 deaths).
The other countries with over 5 million cases are the UK (15,716,908), France (14,285,306), Russia (10,754,905), Turkey (10,736,215), Italy (9,418,256), Spain (8,834,363), Germany (8,397,340), Argentina (7,576,335) Iran (6,236,567) and Colombia (5,655,026), the CSSE figures showed.
The nations with a death toll of over 100,000 are Russia (317,523), Mexico (302,112), Peru (203,750), the UK (153,708), Indonesia (144,199), Italy (142,590), Iran (132,152), Colombia (131,627), France (129,105), Argentina (118,809), Germany (116,372), Ukraine (105,380) and Poland (103,378).
German cases hit record high amid Omicron wave
Germany's seven-day Covid-19 incidence rate exceeded 600 for the first time as 638.8 new infections per 100,000 inhabitants were recorded, the Robert Koch Institute (RKI) for infectious diseases has said.
Due to the more contagious Omicron variant that is spreading across Europe, daily infections in Germany also climbed to a new record as 133,536 cases were registered within 24 hours, around 52,000 more than a week ago, Xinhua news agency reported, citing the RKI.
Minister of Health Karl Lauterbach warned that the peak of the Omicron wave in Germany was not reached yet. "The wave will roughly peak in mid-February," Lauterbach told broadcaster ZDF on Wednesday, expecting "several 100,000 cases per day."
As laboratory polymerase chain reaction (PCR) tests were in short supply, Lauterbach wants to prioritise employees in the healthcare sector and is planning to present a corresponding proposal this weekend.
"We will get such high case numbers that we will have to distribute PCR tests, prioritize."
The number of PCR tests in Germany conducted within a week just reached an all-time high of almost 2 million, of which one in four had a positive result, according to latest figures by the Association of Accredited Laboratories in Medicine (ALM).
(With inputs from IANS)
