Here’s what you need to know about the coronavirus right now:
Over 20 million cases
Global coronavirus cases pushed past 20 million on Monday, according to a Reuters tally, with the United States, Brazil and India accounting for more than half of all known infections. The Reuters tally, which is based on government reports, shows the disease is accelerating.
Experts believe the official data likely undercounts both infections and deaths, particularly in countries with limited testing capacity.
Signs Australian outbreak subsiding
Victoria, Australia’s second-most populous state, reported a small rise in new COVID-19 infections on Tuesday, boosting hopes that case numbers are stabilising after a second wave forced authorities to send the city of Melbourne back into lockdown.
Victoria state detected 331 new COVID-19 infections and 19 deaths in the past 24 hours, compared with 322 infections and the same number of fatalities a day earlier, health officials said.
Authorities said the restrictions that will run until September are bearing fruit. Outside the two largest states of Victoria and New South Wales, the virus has effectively been eliminated.
U.S. weekly death toll falls
Deaths from COVID-19 fell last week after four weeks of increases, according to a Reuters tally of state and county reports. About 7,200 people died last week, 26% below the previous week.
And new cases have now fallen for three straight weeks, though the United States still accounts for a quarter of the global total of 20 million cases.
Last week’s decline in new cases came largely from recent hot spots. For instance, new cases in Arizona fell by more than 48% in the last week, and on Aug. 9 the state reported fewer than 1,000 cases for the first time since June 29.
(Compiled by Karishma Singh; Editing by Simon Cameron-Moore)