Worldwide coronavirus deaths at 17,451 with Italy highest record

As the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) cuts a trail of death across the globe, Italy has become the new epicentre of the deadly virus – first noticed in Wuhan, China – which has seen, by the latest count, 6,077 deaths from a global total of 17,451 deaths in 400,436 cases around the world.
The small European country accounts for almost double the number of deaths in China, which has recorded 3,277 deaths from over eighty thousand cases, compared with Italy’s 63,927 cases.
The country is struggling to cope with over fifty thousand active cases, 3,204 of which are serious or critical condition – a situation that has strained the Italian healthcare system to its limits, even with medical aid coming from China.
While Italy is managing its crisis with a national lockdown, the United States – with a patchwork of states taking serious to mild measures to contain the spread of the virus with the full support of the federal government – is the country with the current highest number of new cases – at over 5,000 – with Spain coming a close second with its 4,540 new cases. Meanwhile, at almost five hundred (485), Spain is the country with the highest number of new deaths.
Of all the countries managing recovery, China outstrips the rest of the world with a staggering 73,159 total recoveries, with only Iran coming a distant second with 8,913 total recovered as of Tuesday evening.
The pandemic is far from over, and there are indications that China itself may be going through a new cycle of fresh cases and deaths since it peaked and cratered weeks ago.
More countries, meanwhile, are taking hard lockdown measures to contain the spread of the virus, with India being the latest, as Prime Minister Narendra Modi ordered a nationwide lockdown for 21 days starting at midnight.
Nigeria’s number of COVID-19 cases currently is in its low forties (44 by the latest NCDC update), but the incline of new cases is steeply rising (with at least 2 new cases per day), a little under a month since the country recorded its first case. Only one death has been reported so far, a drop in a bucket of blood that is Italy, China and Spain.
To put this all in perspective, of the worldwide 400,436 reported cases of the virus, 103,748 have recovered or have been discharged, which amounts to a 25 per cent recovery rate.