ChakisAtelier/iStock(NEW YORK) — The COVID-19 pandemic has infected over three million people across the globe, pushing America’s total to nearly a million, according to Johns Hopkins University.
As of early Monday morning, the global infection number stands at 3,057,957, with 988,469 confirmed cases in the U.S. The global death toll is 211,894 while in the U.S., there are 56,634 confirmed deaths.
It has been theorized that the numbers could be higher due to unequal access to testing and varying requirements and criteria in different countries. Because of that, President Donald Trump laid out guidelines on Monday to ramp up testing across the country in order to safely reopen the economy.
It’s also speculated that some countries are under-reporting the toll COVID-19 has had.
While some Americans are now protesting lockdown measures, health officials say the data regarding the transmission and death rate shows that social distancing measures are working. For example, the flu kills roughly 12,000 to 61,000 people a year, while COVID-19 has killed just as many people since January.
To further put it into perspective, 58,209 Americans perished in the Vietnam War between 1961 to 1975, while 54,246 Americans died in the Korean War between 1950 to 1953.
Health officials say that due to the high death rate, the coronavirus is less akin to a bad flu but more closely resembles pneumonia, because it is causing more severe cases to require hospitalization and ventilators.
According to Johns Hopkins University, out of the over three million worldwide cases, 902,129 have recovered. In the U.S. alone with nearly a million cases, about 111,583 have recovered.
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