Worldwide coronavirus cases surge past 50 million after 30-day spike
- It took 32 days for the number of infections to rise from 30 million to 40 million, but just 21 days to add another 10 million
- The United States has the highest number of infections, topping 10 million cases
Global coronavirus infections exceeded 50 million on Sunday, according to a tally by Johns Hopkins University, with a second wave of the virus in the past 30 days accounting for a quarter of the total.
October was the worst month for the pandemic so far, with the United States becoming the first country to report more than 100,000 daily cases. It is also the first nation to surpass 10 million infections.
The latest seven-day average shows global daily infections are rising by more than 540,000.
More than 1.25 million people have died from the respiratory disease that emerged in China late last year.
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The pandemic’s recent acceleration has been ferocious. It took 32 days for the number of cases to rise from 30 million to 40 million. It took just 21 days to add another 10 million.
Europe, with about 12 million cases, is the worst-affected region, overtaking Latin America. Europe accounts for 24 per cent of Covid-19 deaths.