Worldwide Covid cases surge to alarming 893,000

PARIS: A daily record of more than 893,000 Covid-19 cases has been recorded worldwide, mainly due to a surge of the virus in India, according to an AFP count on Saturday.

The total for cases recorded throughout on Friday is based on official figures at 1000 GMT on Saturday. The previous daily high was some 819,000 cases on January 8.

More than a third of the infections occurred in India, which announced 332,730 new cases on Friday and another 346,786 on Saturday, also a record for a single country since the start of the pandemic.

Over the course of a week, more than 5.5 million cases were recorded worldwide, including almost two million in India.

India has also recorded a record 2,624 deaths over the previous 24 hours. The pandemic has killed nearly 190,000 people in total in the country.

Other countries trailing India with the most new infections are the United States (490,000 cases in one week), Brazil (459,000) and Turkey (404,000).

The threshold of 150 million cases worldwide is expected to be reached next week.

According to an AFP count from official figures on Saturday at 1000 GMT, 145,544,646 cases have been recorded worldwide since the start of the pandemic in December 2019 in China.

On December 8, 90-year-old British woman Margaret Keenan, resplendent in her Christmas T-shirt, received the Western world’s first Covid vaccination -- a chink of light at the end of the tunnel for humanity after a devastating pandemic year.

Six months on, nearly one billion Covid jabs – both first and second shots – have been administered globally, according to AFP’s database.

The unprecedented inoculation drive is seen as the world’s ticket out of the coronavirus disaster, despite concerns about rare side effects, worries over supply, and a glaring inequality between rich and poor.

With new Covid variants sparking a worrying fresh spike of cases and uncertainty over the vaccines’ effectiveness against them, the planet is now racing to inoculate as many people as possible before being overwhelmed by yet another wave of a pandemic that has already killed three million people.

Malaysia has received 268,800 doses of AstraZeneca vaccines, its first batch from the pharmaceutical company, state news agency reported.Health Minister Adham Baba said the batch was purchased through the COVAX facility.

"The COVAX facility sent the vaccine from South Korea, and we will keep it at the designated storage centre," he told reporters, according to Bernama.

Bulgaria is easing restrictions ahead of Orthodox Easter and the start of the summer vacation season even as the virus morbidity rate remains relatively high.

The government is allowing indoor church services on Palm Sunday and Easter but requiring them to be reduced in length.

The willow branches traditionally handed out on Palm Sunday also must be distributed outside church buildings.Worshippers also are advised not to touch or kiss religious icons, and to avoid crowds and wear protective masks.

Russia has reported 8,828 new virus cases, including 2,541 in Moscow, which took the national tally to 4,753,789 since the start of the pandemic.

The coronavirus crisis centre said 399 more deaths of patients had been confirmed in the past 24 hours, taking the national death toll to 107,900.

The federal statistics agency has kept a separate count and reported a toll of more than 225,000 from April 2020 to February.

Cambodia has closed all markets in the capital Phnom Penh to contain a spike in coronavirus infections as thousands of families plead for food during a two-week lockdown.

The Southeast Asian country has one of the world’s smallest coronavirus caseloads, but an outbreak that started in late February has seen overall cases spike to 8,848 and 61 deaths.

Phnom Penh went into lockdown on April 15 and has declared some districts "red zones," banning people from leaving their homes except for medical reasons.

New Zealand has paused arrivals from Western Australia, temporarily excluding the state’s travellers from a quarantine-free bubble between the countries due to a Covid-19 outbreak.

"As set out in our Trans-Tasman bubble protocols, travel between New Zealand and Western Australia has been paused, pending further advice from the state government," a statement on the New Zealand government website said.

Earlier on Friday the Perth and Peel regions were sent into a three-day lockdown after Western Australia recorded its first community transmission of the virus in 12 months .

South Korea has said it signed a contract with Pfizer Inc to purchase an additional 40 million doses of its vaccine amid fears of spiking infections at home.

That brings the current amount of Pfizer vaccines to 66 million doses, it said in a statement. It added that it had secured a total 192 million doses of vaccines, including those from Moderna Inc, AstraZeneca PLC, Johnson & Johnson’s and Novavax.

The US Chamber of Commerce called on the Biden administration to release millions of doses of AstraZeneca vaccine from storage for shipment to India, Brazil and other countries hit hard by the coronavirus pandemic.