COVID-19 deaths top 80,000 worldwide: Johns Hopkins University

The death toll from COVID-19 exceeded 80,000 worldwide by 3 p.m. EST (1900 GMT) on Tuesday (April 7), according to a tally by Johns Hopkins University.

People wearing face masks do shopping at a market in Rome, Italy, April 6, 2020. (Photo: Xinhua)
People wearing face masks do shopping at a market in Rome, Italy, April 6, 2020. (Photo: Xinhua)

The fresh figure reached 80,759, as the global total confirmed cases reached 1,407,123, an interactive map maintained by the university's Center for Systems Science and Engineering showed.

Italy had seen the most deaths, standing at 17,127 among 135,586 confirmed cases, followed by Spain, with 13,897 deaths among 140,511 cases.

The United States reported 383,256 confirmed cases, the most in the world, and its death toll stood at 12,021.

* The COVID-19 death toll in Europe continued to climb as the number in France jumped by over 1,400 on Tuesday to pass the 10,000 mark.

With 10,328 deaths, France became the third country in Europe to report over 10,000 deaths after Italy and Spain.

In neighboring Spain, there were daily increases, however, in both new cases and deaths over the past 24 hours. The new cases increased by 5,478 to 140,510 in total, while the deaths rose by 743 to 13,798.

The new daily death number is higher than 637 deaths reported on Monday and 674 deaths on Sunday. The increase ends a four-day consecutive decline in the new daily deaths in Spain, although Tuesday's increase was attributed to delays in collating the data over the weekend, according to health authorities.

Britain on Tuesday announced the highest daily COVID-19 death toll. With 726 deaths, the death toll of those hospitalized in the country reached 6,159 as of Monday afternoon, according to the Department of Health and Social Care.

As of Tuesday morning, the number of confirmed cases in Britain hit 55,242, up 3,634 in the past 24 hours, said the department.

In other developments, the death toll in both Belgium and The Netherlands crossed the 2,000 mark on Tuesday.

Belgium, where the total number of cases has reached 22,194, recorded, over the past 24 hours, 162 new deaths in addition to 241 deaths in nursing homes in Flanders registered between April 1 and April 4, bringing the total fatalities in the country to 2,035.

The death toll in The Netherlands, after reporting a daily high of 234 deaths, reached 2,101, while the total cases grew by 777 to 19,580.

Xinhua