2.61 Million New COVID-19 Cases Worldwide in One Day...Record High Again

[Image source=AP Yonhap News]

[Asia Economy Reporter Cho Hyun-ui] Due to the spread of the Omicron variant, 2.61 million people worldwide were diagnosed with COVID-19 in a single day. This is the highest record since the pandemic began.

According to the international statistics site Our World in Data on the 5th (local time), the number of new COVID-19 cases worldwide was 2.61 million as of the previous day. This broke the record set just one day earlier on the 3rd (2.44 million).

The United States, which for the first time worldwide recorded over 1 million daily cases the day before, saw a slight decrease to about 870,000 cases on this day. Canada surpassed 80,000 cases, setting a new daily high.

France reported 332,252 positive COVID-19 cases, the second highest in the world after the United States. The United Kingdom recorded 194,747 cases on this day, slightly down from about 218,000 the previous day.

Italy reported 189,109 cases, setting a new daily record, while the Netherlands (24,500) and Sweden (17,320) also broke their highest daily case records. Portugal (39,570), Turkey (66,467), Israel (11,978), and Croatia (8,587) also set new daily high case records on this day.

In Asia, India is experiencing a rapid increase in cases. The daily new cases in India, which had dropped to 5,326 on the 21st of last month, surged to 58,097 on this day, more than tenfold in just half a month.

Australia, previously regarded as a model country for quarantine, had daily cases in the 1,000s just a month ago, but on this day surpassed 70,000, setting a new record. In Latin America, Argentina (95,159), Bolivia, and the Dominican Republic also reported their highest daily case numbers.

However, the number of deaths due to COVID-19 has decreased, showing a 'decoupling' trend where the number of cases and deaths are inversely related.

The number of global deaths due to COVID-19 over the past seven days was 42,167. Compared to January last year, when weekly deaths exceeded 100,000, this is less than half.

Even looking at the past month, when cases surged sharply due to the spread of the Omicron variant, deaths have been declining. As of December 5th, the weekly death toll was 56,249, but it has decreased by about 25% in one month as the downward trend continues.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.