Shawdesh Desk:

The overall number of Covid cases is fast approaching 245 million amid the global race to vaccinate masses against the infectious disease.

According to Johns Hopkins University (JHU), the total case count mounted to 244,980,203 while the death tally from the virus reached 4,971,409 Thursday morning.

The US has recorded 45,703,865 cases to date and more than 741,231 people have died so far from the virus in the country, as per the university data.

The United States tallied the largest number of new cases over the last seven days — nearly 513,000 new cases, though that was a 12% drop from the previous week – and over 11,600 deaths, which was about the same number as the previous week, the World Health Organization (WHO) said.

Brazil, which has been experiencing a new wave of cases since January, registered 21,766,168 cases so far, while its Covid death toll rose to 606,679.

India’s Covid-19 tally rose to 34,215,653 on Wednesday, as 13,451 new cases were registered in 24 hours across the country, according to the federal health ministry.

Besides, 585 deaths due to the pandemic since Tuesday morning took the total death toll to 455,653.

However, Europe stood out as the only major region worldwide to report an increase in both coronavirus cases and deaths over the past week, the UN health agency said Wednesday.

The World Health Organization said new Covid-19 cases in its 53-country European region, which stretches as far east as the former Soviet republics in Central Asia, recorded an 18% increase in corona cases over the last week — a fourth straight weekly increase for the area, reports AP.

In WHO’s weekly epidemiological report on Covid-19, Europe also saw a 14% increase in virus-related deaths. That amounted to more than 1.6 million new cases and over 21,000 new deaths.

Meanwhile, Russia is reporting an increasing number of coronavirus infections and Covid deaths as the country approaches a week of non-working days aimed at stemming the surge in cases.

Russia has reported 36,582 new Covid-19 cases over the past 24 hours, taking the nationwide tally to 8,352,601, the official monitoring and response center said on Wednesday. The nationwide death toll grew by 1,123, the highest daily rise since the start of the pandemic, to 233,898.

Situation in Bangladesh

Covid-19 claimed seven more lives and infected 306 more people in 24 hours till Wednesday morning.

The daily case positivity rate increased slightly to 1.53 percent from Tuesday’s 1.44 percent.

The fresh cases were detected after testing 19,951 samples, according to the Directorate General of Health Services (DGHS).

With the fresh numbers, the Covid-19 fatalities reached 27,841 while the caseload climbed to 1,568,563 in Bangladesh, according to the DGHS.

Among the latest deceased, three were men and four were women.

The recovery rate increased slightly to 97.70 percent, with 288 more patients getting cured.