Shawdesh Desk:

The overall number of Covid cases has surpassed 261 million amid concern after detection of new variant of coronavirus Omicron in some countries.

According to Johns Hopkins University (JHU), the total case count mounted to 261,434,076 while the death toll from the virus reached 5,199,349 on Monday morning.

The US has recorded 48,229,210 cases to date and more than 776,639 people have died so far from the virus in the country, as per the university data.

Brazil, which has been experiencing a new wave of cases since January, has registered 22,080,906, cases so far, while its Covid death toll rose to 614,278.

India’s COVID-19 tally rose to 34,572,523 on Sunday, as 8,774 new cases were registered during the past 24 hours across the country, showed the federal health ministry’s latest data.

Besides, as many as 621 deaths due to the pandemic since Saturday morning took the total death toll to 468,554.

Russia registered 33,548 new coronavirus cases over the past 24 hours, taking the nationwide tally to 9,570,373, the official monitoring and response center said Sunday. The nationwide death toll grew by 1,224 to 272,755, while the number of recoveries increased by 30,646 to 8,268,111.

Meanwhile, World Health Organization (WHO) said on Sunday that it’s not yet clear whether Omicron is more easily spread from person to person compared to other variants, even though the number of people testing positive has risen in South Africa where this variant was involved.

It’s also not yet clear whether Omicron causes more severe disease, but preliminary data suggests that there are increasing rates of hospitalization in South Africa, which however may be due to increasing overall numbers of people becoming infected, reports Xinhua.

WHO classified on Friday the latest variant B.1.1.529 of SARS-CoV-2 virus, now with the name Omicron, as a ‘Variant of Concern’ (VOC).