The Coronavirus outbreak will have lasting effects on everyone for years to come. Reports of infections and recoveries continue to pop up on every screen but the ones that are the most worrying in the ones about the Coronavirus related deaths.
Every country will have new records set. The first infection recorded. Highest infections per day recorded. The area with most infections. First recovery, and then the dreaded first death recorded. Then second death and so on until the morbid records starts to take on very macabre statistics such as the one just received from the US.
“The United States has recorded 1,169 deaths from coronavirus in 24 hours, the highest daily death toll of any country so far. Over 5,900 people have now died since the pandemic began and the country accounts for around a quarter of all known infections around the globe”
The official tally comes from figures reported by the Johns Hopkins University between 8:30 pm Wednesday (0030 GMT) and the same time Thursday.
The grim record was previously held by Italy, where 969 people died on March 27.
The US has now recorded around 6,000 coronavirus deaths since the pandemic began. Italy is still the country with the most deaths, a total of 14681 people succumbed to the virus. The next countries are Spain with 11,744 deaths, France with 6,507 and the United Kingdom with 3,605 deaths. South Africa currently has 9 deaths recorded
The youngest American victim was reported earlier this week – a 6 week old baby in the state of Connecticut.
The total amount of people that recovered so far from the disease are 233,689. Chine had the highest figure of recoveries at 76942 with Spain, Germany, Italy Iran and France following.
The total amount of infections is still extremely high with 1,134,418. The US has 278,458. Spain now has the second most infections at 124,736 with Italy following at 119,827. China only has 82,543 infections.
The pandemic is still growing with no immediate end in sight.
South Africa has seen defiance by many people, mostly in the poorer areas, towards the disease. People are still gathering in groups and someplace even hosting parties. The army has been called and deployed to help. Govan Mbeki saw the Army deployed over the past few days.
Social distancing is not adhered to even though some shops have placed markers to indicate the distance that should be kept from other persons. Debates about the wearing of masks are flooding the social media groups and Fake news is rife.
Only time will tell if South Africa’s efforts were in time and efficient.