The global tally of COVID-19 cases surpassed 8 million accompanied by 437,000 deaths on Tuesday, as new cases surged to about 100,000 a day led by infections mostly in the Americas and South Asia.
It took just eight days for the world to get from 7 million cases up to 8 million. That was one day faster than the nine-day jump from 6 million cases on May 31 up to 7 million on June 8.
Ten days before that, the world crossed the 5 million mark on May 21. And before then, the 4 million and 3 million thresholds were each reached within 12 days.
With 2.1 million cases and 116,000 deaths, the United States had by far the highest numbers in the world. Brazil had the second-highest numbers, with 888,000 cases and 43,000 deaths.
Russia had the next most cases, 544,000, followed by India, 343,000, and the United Kingdom, 299,000. However, the U.K. had the third-most deaths, 42,000, making it Europe's highest death toll. By comparison, Russia had 7,200 deaths, and India had 9,900.
At least 3.9 million people have recovered from coronavirus infections ar0und the world, according to Johns Hopkins University and Google data trackers.
The World Health Organization warned that all nations, even those that have shown the ability to suppress transmission, must stay alert to the possibility of resurgence as the number of cases worldwide keeps accelerating.
"It took more than 2 months for the first 100,000 cases to be reported. For the past two weeks, more than 100,000 new cases have been reported almost every single day," WHO's director-general, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, told a news media briefing on Monday.
"Almost 75% of recent cases come from 10 countries, mostly in the Americas and South Asia," he said. "However, we also see increasing numbers of cases in Africa, Eastern Europe, Central Asia and the Middle East."
In China, where the virus was first detected in late December, there were at least 84,000 cases and 4,600 deaths. China authorities reported a new cluster of cases in Beijing with 100 confirmed infections — after more than 50 days without a case there. China closed parts of Beijing and limited travel to other areas.
Two of Europe's hardest-hit nations, Spain and Italy, were managing to slow their infection and death rates. Spain had 244,328 cases and 27,136 deaths; Italy had 237,000 cases and 34,000 deaths.
The next biggest numbers of cases — all greater than in China — were found in Bangladesh, Canada, Chile, France, Germany, Iran, Mexico, Pakistan, Peru, Saudi Arabia and Turkey.
