China no longer has the highest number of COVID-19 cases in the world

The COVID-19 outbreak began in Wuhan, China and spread rapidly to the rest of the world. The very first cases of the virus were reported in December 2019, from then until now, China has had the most number of COVID-19 cases. In fact on the 11th of February, 99% of global COVID-19 cases were in China. China was also the first country to accumulate over 80,000 cases.

However, based on the latest statistics, the United States has overtaken China as they have reported 85,996 cases and 1,300 deaths as of today. They officially have the most number of COVID-19 cases in the world. Followed by China which has 81,782 cases with a total of 3,291 deaths. Italy trails closely behind at 80,589 cases and they record the highest deaths in the world at 8,215 cases.

The numbers in the US are alarming because just one month ago, on the 27th of February, the US only had 58 confirmed cases. In one month, that number increased by 85,782. The same can be said about Italy as they have jumped from 655 cases to 80,589 cases in just a month. However, the death rates between the two countries differ. Italy is the highest at around 10.2%, meanwhile, in the US, it is about 1.5%. This can be attributed to a number of factors such as age. According to Aljazeera, 23% of the Italian population is above 65 years old and 85.6% of the people who have died are above the age of 70.

COVID-19 cases in the US increased by a staggering 18,100 in just one day from the 26th of March. This is probably the highest increase of cases in a single day for any country. At the current rate, the US could breach 100,000 accumulative cases by tomorrow. As a comparison, China’s highest increase of cases in a single day was 15,100, which is significantly lower than the US. From its initial case in December as reported by Forbes, it took China three months to reach its 80,000 mark. You can monitor the increase right here on Johns Hopkins global COVID-19 cases tracker.

Currently, there are a total of 542,788 cases of COVID-19 in the world and 24,361 deaths. To mitigate the effects of rapid spreading, many countries have gone into lockdown or have employed movement control and this, in turn, is affecting the lives of many.

The situation in China has improved tremendously with 55 new cases of COVID-19 reported yesterday, out of which 54 were imported. Out of the total 81,782 confirmed cases, 74,588 patients have been recovered and discharged. Although China’s lockdown may have seemed to be severe, it also might have worked as they are reporting fewer cases in the past week. Wuhan went into lockdown on the 23rd of January and it is set to be lifted on the 8th of April.

South Korea, where the virus was once spreading rapidly, has around 9,332 confirmed cases. They employed a public health warning campaign and started extensive testing. According to Forbes, they carried out around 10,000 COVID-19 tests per day. They are still reporting new cases, however, the number of new cases per day has reduced.

Meanwhile, according to The Guardian, around 3.3 million Americans applied for unemployment, just last week. The US treasury expects unemployment to reach up to 20%. President Trump’s administration is set to deploy a USD 2 trillion (RM8.5 trillion) stimulus package to cushion the impact of the COVID-19 crisis. In Malaysia, there are 2,161 cases currently and a total of 26 deaths. 259 people have recovered and discharged so far.

[SOURCE, IMAGE SOURCE]