The number of confirmed COVID-19 cases worldwide reached 20 million on Tuesday – more than half of them in the US, Brazil and India – and the death toll is more than 737,000, according to figures from Johns Hopkins University.
It took about six months to reach 10 million cases, after the deadly virus first appeared last year in the Chinese city of Wuhan. It took just six weeks for that number to double.
The US, India and Brazil combined account for nearly two-thirds of all reported infections since the world struck 15 million coronaviruses on July 22, according to an Associated Press data analysis on Sunday.
More than 163,000 people have died from the infection in the US, where more than 5 million are infected, according to the latest figures.
Health officials believe that the actual number of those infected is much higher than the count of Johns Hopkins, given test restrictions, and that as many as 40 percent of those affected by the bug did not show any symptoms.
As a result, the race to develop a viable vaccine has topped the global health care and geopolitical agenda, even as the UN has warned that every inoculation must be safe and made available to all, not just people of means.
On Tuesday, Russian President Vladimir Putin announced that his country had registered the first COVID-19 vaccine in the world – saying it offered “sustainable immunity” and that one of his daughters had already received shots.
Russia has reported more than 890,000 cases, the fourth-highest total in the world, according to Johns Hopkins.
Putin said the Russian vaccine has undergone the necessary tests and offers a lasting immunity, although scientists have warned that it is urgent to start using the vaccine before Phase 3 test subjects can recover.
“The point is not to be first with a vaccine,” U.S. Secretary of State and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar said Tuesday during a visit to Taiwan when asked about the Russian vaccine.
“The point is to have a vaccine that is safe and effective for the American people and the people of the world,” he added.
The US has half a dozen vaccine candidates under development, European countries have several trials underway and China has begun inoculating with an experimental vaccine.
In India, the number of new reports reported daily remains steady, hitting a rolling average of seven days of 58,768. In the US, the daily average has been declining since July 22, but remains high at more than 53,000.
On Tuesday, India reported 53,601 new cases because its count of total infections was close to 2.3 million. The reported death rate – at 2 percent – is much lower than in the US and Brazil.
Brazil has recorded more than 3 million cases and 100,000 deaths, according to CNN.
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