Washington: The global coronavirus caseload has topped 202.6 million, while the deaths have surged to more than 4.29 million and vaccinations soared to over 4.33 billion, according to the Johns Hopkins University.
In its latest update on Monday morning, the University’s Center for Systems Science and Engineering (CSSE) revealed that the current global caseload, death toll stood and vaccination tally stood at 202,661,707, 4,293,555 and 4,339,912,422, respectively.
The US continues to be the worst-hit country with the world’s highest number of cases and deaths at 35,762,751 and 616,827, respectively, according to the CSSE.
In terms of infections, India follows in the second place with 31,934,455 cases.
The other worst countries with over 3 million cases are Brazil (20,165,672), France (6,371,349), Russia (6,362,641), the UK (6,098,085), Turkey (5,895,841), Argentina (5,018,895), Colombia (4,838,984), Spain (4,588,132), Italy (4,396,417), Iran (4,158,729), Germany (3,797,849) and Indonesia (3,666,031), the CSSE figures showed.
In terms of deaths, Brazil comes second with 563,151 fatalities.
Nations with a death toll of over 100,000 are India (427,862), Mexico (244,420), Peru (196,873), Russia (162,109), the UK (130,624), Italy (128,220), Colombia (122,458), France (112,407), Argentina (107,459) and Indonesia (107,096).
Meanwhile, To further reinforce the shield against the COVID-19 pandemic, Beijing has rolled out a range of measures to strengthen the management of personnel returning from regions with relatively high virus transmission rates.
China’s capital city on Sunday stepped up measures to prevent the spread of coronavirus cases by virtually banning people from travelling to Beijing from provinces with the high COVID-19 transmission rates.
To further reinforce the shield against the COVID-19 pandemic, Beijing has rolled out a range of measures to strengthen the management of personnel returning from regions with relatively high virus transmission rates, including imposing restrictions on their purchase of railway tickets and air services, state-run Global Times reported.
People from medium- or high-risk regions or planning to return to Beijing but have a travel history related to these regions will be prevented from buying tickets for air and railway services. In addition, if they choose to drive into the Chinese capital, they will also be persuaded to make a U-turn and leave, the paper said.
Several Chinese cities, including Wuhan where the coronavirus first surfaced in December 2019, have reported resurgence of COVID-19 cases, stated to be the Delta variant.
The Global Times report said health codes for people who are still in medium- and high-risk regions will be adjusted to the yellow colour, and anyone with a health code that is not green will not be allowed to board planes or trains bound for Beijing.
Presenting a green health code will be a must.
Only when medium- and high-risk regions are downgraded to low-risk or when travellers don’t have a travel history in designated risk regions within 14 days, can their yellow codes return to the normal green colour.
After gaining a green health code, passengers would also have to present a negative nucleic acid test result within 48 hours of boarding transport to return to Beijing.
