Global COVID-19 cases close to 213.8M as death toll reaches 4.46M -AFP

The novel coronavirus has killed at least 4,461,431 people since the outbreak emerged in China in December 2019, according to a tally from official sources compiled by AFP at 1000 GMT on Thursday. 

At least 213,795,270 cases of coronavirus have been registered. The vast majority have recovered, though some have continued to experience symptoms weeks or even months later. 

The figures are based on daily reports provided by health authorities in each country. They exclude revisions made by other statistical organizations, which show that the number of deaths is much higher. 

The World Health Organization estimates that the pandemic's overall toll could be two to three times higher than official records, due to the excess mortality that is directly and indirectly linked to Covid-19. 

A large number of the less severe or asymptomatic cases also remain undetected, despite intensified testing in many countries. 

On Wednesday, 11,899 new deaths and 767,147 new cases were recorded worldwide. 

Based on latest reports, the countries with the most new deaths were United States with 2,322 new deaths, followed by Indonesia with 1,041 and Mexico with 986. 

The United States is the worst-affected country with 632,272 deaths from 38,223,219 cases. After the US, the hardest-hit countries are Brazil with 576,645 deaths from 20,645,537 cases, India with 436,365 deaths from 32,558,530 cases, Mexico with 255,452 deaths from 3,271,128 cases, and Peru with 198,031 deaths from 2,145,051 cases. 

The country with the highest number of deaths compared to its population is Peru with 601 fatalities per 100,000 inhabitants, followed by Hungary with 311, Bosnia-Herzegovina with 297, Czech Republic with 284, Republic of North Macedonia with 276 and Brazil with 271. 

Latin America and the Caribbean overall has 1,428,463 deaths from 42,892,425 cases, Europe 1,239,750 deaths from 62,305,710 infections, and Asia 763,411 deaths from 49,223,734 cases. 

The United States and Canada has reported 659,125 deaths from 39,700,707 cases, Africa 191,774 deaths from 7,626,700 cases, Middle East 177,242 deaths from 11,932,691 cases, and Oceania 1,666 deaths from 113,312 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