Coronavirus takes 50,000 more lives globally in just 8 days

Washington

The number of deaths linked to the novel coronavirus reached 150,000 yesterday, according to a latest tally. The first death came in the central Chinese city of Wuhan on Jan. 9. It took 83 days for the first 50,000 deaths to be recorded and just eight more for the toll to climb to 100,000. It took another eight days to go from 100,000 to 150,000. The good news however is that 568,218 have recovered since the virus hit the world.

The United States of America is currently leading with over 699,044 cases, 36,849 deaths and those who have recovered are 59,129. Spain is in second place with around 188,000 cases, followed by Italy. The coronavirus (COVID-19) is now affecting 210 countries and territories around the world and 2 international conveyances. The novel coronavirus is believed to have emerged in a Wuhan market where wild animals were sold before quickly spreading around the world.

Much remains to be determined about it, scientists say, including just how lethal it is. In many countries, official data includes only deaths reported in hospitals, not those in homes or nursing homes. The death toll is still far short of the so-called Spanish flu, which began in 1918 and is estimated to have killed more than 20 million people by the time it petered out in 1920.

Meanwhile, Two NASA astronauts and a Russian cosmonaut yesterday made a safe return from the International Space Station to find a “different planet,” transformed by the coronavirus pandemic. Andrew Morgan, Jessica Meir and Oleg Skripochka touched down in central Kazakhstan at 0516 GMT in the first returning mission since the World Health Organization declared COVID-19 a global pandemic in March.

Morgan had been on the ISS since July last year, while Meir and Skripochka arrived in September. “TOUCHDOWN! Welcome home, Oleg Skripochka, Andrew Morgan and Jessica Meir!” Russia’s Roscosmos space agency wrote on Twitter. Unusually, NASA and Roscosmos did not show live footage of the trio parachuting down in their Soyuz landing capsule.