Advertisement
Latest updates:

Iran threatens Israel with ‘severe and painful’ response

Global coronavirus cases have doubled in 45 days to reach 20 million

Ross McGuinness
Updated ·2-min read
SRINAGAR, INDIA - AUGUST 10: A health worker collects a swab sample from a woman to test for coronavirus infection, at Tourist Reception Centre, on August 10, 2020 in Srinagar, India. (Photo by Waseem Andrabi/Hindustan Times via Getty Images)
A health worker carries out a coronavirus test in Srinagar, India, as the number of global cases surpassed 20 million. (Waseem Andrabi/Hindustan Times via Getty Images)

The number of coronavirus cases worldwide has reached 20 million, doubling in just 45 days.

The figure was reached in the early hours of Tuesday, according to Johns Hopkins University’s COVID-19 dashboard.

By 4.45pm on Tuesday, the global number of cases had increased to 20,126,452.

It took six months to get to 10 million cases after COVID-19 was identified in Wuhan, China, in December last year – but only a month-and-a-half for that figure to double.

The total number of deaths worldwide now stands at more than 737,000.

Almost a quarter of the cases – more than five million – have been in the US, where there have been more than 163,000 deaths.

Brazil is the second worst affected country with more than 101,000 deaths, while there have been more than 53,000 in Mexico.

According to Johns Hopkins, there have been more than 46,600 deaths in the UK, though figures published by the Office for National Statistics (ONS) on Tuesday showed 51,710 deaths involving COVID-19 were recorded up to the week ending 31 July in England and Wales alone.

Meanwhile, there have been more than three million cases in Brazil, 2.2 million in India and almost 900,000 in Russia.

Military personnel from the Brazilian Armed Forces sanitize a bus at the Santa Candida bus terminal to combat the spread of the the novel coronavirus, COVID-19, in Curitiba, Parana State, Brazil, on August 10, 2020. - The pandemic has killed at least 731,518 people worldwide, 101,049 of them in Brazil, since it surfaced in China late last year, according to a tally from official sources compiled by AFP at 1100 GMT on Monday. (Photo by Daniel CASTELLANO / AFP) (Photo by DANIEL CASTELLANO/AFP via Getty Images)
A team from the Brazilian armed forces sanitise a bus in Curitiba on Monday. (AFP via Getty Images)

The US, India and Brazil combined accounted for almost two-thirds of reported COVID-19 infections since the global figure passed 15 million on 22 July.

However, some health experts believe the real figure of cases worldwide is in fact far higher than the Johns Hopkins tally, due to testing limitations and suggestions that as many as 40% of people infected have no symptoms.

Meanwhile, in the 45 days it took reported infections to double to 20 million, the number of reported virus deaths climbed from 499,000 to 736,000, an average of more than 5,200 fatalities each day.

On Tuesday, New Zealand announced it had recorded its first new community transmission cases of coronavirus for more than 100 days.

Coronavirus: what happened today

Click here to sign up to the latest news and information with our daily Catch-up newsletter