Global COVID-19 cases exceed 16.7M, death toll at 660,787 with more than 9.5M recoveries

PARIS, France - The novel coronavirus has killed at least 660,787 people since the outbreak emerged in China last December, according to a tally from official sources compiled by AFP at 1100 GMT on Wednesday.

At least 16,769,080 cases of coronavirus have been registered in 196 countries and territories. Of these, at least 9,555,900 are now considered recovered.

The tallies, using data collected by AFP from national authorities and information from the World Health Organization (WHO), probably reflect only a fraction of the actual number of infections.

Many countries are testing only symptomatic or the most serious cases.

On Tuesday, 6,307 new deaths and 244,718 new cases were recorded worldwide. The countries with the most new deaths were United States with 1,592, followed by Brazil with 921 and Mexico with 854.

The US is the worst-hit country with 149,260 deaths from 4,352,304 cases. At least 1,355,363 people have been declared recovered.

After the US, the hardest-hit countries are Brazil with 88,539 deaths from 2,483,191 cases, the United Kingdom with 45,878 deaths from 300,692 cases, Mexico with 44,876 deaths from 402,697 cases, and Italy with 35,123 deaths from 246,488 cases.

The country with the highest number of deaths compared to its population is Belgium with 85 fatalities per 100,000 inhabitants, followed by the United Kingdom with 68, Spain 61, Italy 58, and Sweden 56.

China -- excluding Hong Kong and Macau -- has to date declared 84,060 cases (101 new since Tuesday), including 4,634 deaths and 78,944 recoveries.

Europe overall has 208,919 deaths from 3,116,136 cases, Latin America and the Caribbean 188,718 deaths from 4,527,911 infections, the United States and Canada 158,200 deaths from 4,467,181 cases, Asia 59,913 deaths from 2,641,771 cases, the Middle East 26,334 deaths from 1,123,083 cases, Africa 18,496 deaths from 875,652 cases, and Oceania 207 deaths from 17,350 cases.

As a result of corrections by national authorities or late publication of data, the figures updated over the past 24 hours may not correspond exactly to the previous day's tallies. -- Agence France-Presse