Shawdesh Desk:

More than 75.5 million people have been infected with coronavirus globally and over 1.67 million of them died since the first cases were reported in December last year, according to data compiled by the Johns Hopkins University (JHU).

The global caseload stood at 75,588,781 with 1,672,826 fatalities on Saturday.

In the United States, the total number of Covid-19 cases topped 17.4 million according to the Center for Systems Science and Engineering (CSSE) at JHU.

The US case count rose to 17,442,180 with 313,246 deaths as of Saturday.

New cases in the U.S. are running at over 216,000 per day on average. Deaths per day have hit all-time highs, eclipsing 3,600 on Wednesday, reports AP.

The nation is scrambling to expand vaccinations as rapidly as Moderna and Pfizer can churn out doses. Moderna’s is for people 18 and older, Pfizer’s starts at age 16.

The U.S. added a second COVID-19 vaccine to its arsenal Friday, boosting efforts to beat back an outbreak so dire that the nation is regularly recording more than 3,000 deaths a day.

Brazil’s COVID-19 death toll rose to 185,650 on Friday after 823 more patients died from the disease in the previous 24 hours, the Ministry of Health said.

In the same period, tests detected 52,544 cases of infection, raising the total caseload to 7,162,978 since the start of the outbreak in Brazil on Feb. 26.

India recorded 22,890 new coronavirus cases on Friday, taking the total caseload to 9,979,447.

Up to 338 more deaths were reported, taking total fatality to 1,44,789 as of today.