Washington:Â The overall number of global coronavirus cases has topped 64.4 million, while the deaths have surged to more than 1.49 million, according to the Johns Hopkins University.
In its latest update on Thursday, the University’s Center for Systems Science and Engineering (CSSE) revealed that the current global caseload and death toll stood at 64,447,657 and 1,491,559, respectively.
The US is the worst-hit country with the world’s highest number of cases and deaths at 13,916,543 and 273,316, respectively, according to the CSSE.
India comes in second place in terms of cases at 9,499,413, while the country’s death toll soared to 138,122.
The other countries with more than a million confirmed cases are Brazil (6,436,650), Russia (2,327,105), France (2,275,677), Spain (1,665,775), the UK (1,663,467), Italy (1,641,610), Argentina (1,440,103), Colombia (1,334,089), Mexico (1,133,613), Germany (1,106,074) and Poland (1,013,747), the CSSE figures showed.
Brazil currently accounts for the second highest number of fatalities at 174,515.
The countries with a death toll above 20,000 are Mexico (107,565), the UK (59,796), Italy (57,045), France (52,822), Iran (48,990), Spain (45,784), Russia (40,630), Argentina (39,156), Colombia (37,117), Peru (35,966) and South Africa (21,709).
Meanwhile, nearly 100 world leaders and several dozen ministers are slated to speak at the U.N. General Assembly’s special session starting Thursday on the response to COVID-19 and the best path to recovery from the pandemic which has claimed 1.5 million lives, shattered economies, and left tens of millions of people unemployed in countries rich and poor.
Assembly President Volkan Bozkir said when he took the reins of the 193-member world body in September that it would have been better to hold the high-level meeting in June.
Nonetheless, he said Wednesday it “provides a historic moment for us to come together to beat COVID-19.”
With news of multiple vaccines on the cusp of approval, and with trillions of dollars flowing into global recovery efforts, the international community has a unique opportunity to do this right, he said.
The world is looking to the U.N. for leadership. This is a test for multilateralism.
When financial markets collapsed and the world faced its last great crisis in 2008, major powers worked together to restore the global economy, but the COVID-19 pandemic has been striking for the opposite response: no leader, no united action to stop the pandemic that has circled the globe.