Coronavirus latest: Japanese city hit by ‘second wave’, India deaths overtake China
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China reported no new confirmed coronavirus cases in the mainland as of the end of May 28, down from two a day earlier, the country’s health authority said on Friday.
The National Health Commission also confirmed five new asymptomatic coronavirus cases on May 28, down from 23 a day earlier.
The South Asian nation’s death toll hit 4,695 on Thursday, climbing past the 4,638 fatalities from Covid-19 in China. The nation of 1.3 billion people now has the highest number of fatalities in Asia, excluding Iran, despite the largest lockdown in the world.
The country’s death toll quadrupled in less than a month, accelerating by more than 1,000 over the past week, while infections have been soaring at a similar pace. Government experts have begun to acknowledge the outbreak won’t peak until June or July.
The total number of cases in India is already about twice the level in China, and also surpasses those in Iran. Infections rose to 165,069 on Thursday, the ninth highest globally, according to data from Johns Hopkins University.
“The hope was the lockdown will be able to prevent transmission, but clearly that did not happen,” said Vivekanand Jha, executive director of the George Institute of Global Health, India.
While still far behind the number of cases and deaths seen in places like the US, Spain and Italy, the rapid growth of India’s virus burden comes as the pace of new infections starts to plateau or decline in many of the wealthier countries where the pandemic first struck, and explode across the developing world. In recent weeks, Brazil’s epidemic has quickly grown to be the largest in the world behind only the US, while Peru, Mexico and Chile are all rapidly developing into problem spots.