Why is the 8 Million Covid-19 Cases Milestone Important for the World?

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I have been conducting Data Analytics Studies on the Coronavirus Pandemic for 96 days and have written 149 research-based blog posts on COVID-19 in these 96 days.

A few minutes ago, the world reached the milestone of 8 million (80 lakh) Covid-19 cases. The current case count is 8,009,830 as I begin writing this post. What makes this milestone more important than say the 6 million or 7 million cases milestone?

It is because more than 1 in 1,000 people on earth have now contracted the disease. Yes, when we divide the world population of 7.7915 billion (or 779.15 crore) people by 8,009,830 cases, it means that more than 1 in 972 people have tested positive for the deadly pandemic that is affecting human lives throughout our planet.

More than 31% of the cases are from North America, over 27.6% are from Europe, over 20.3% from Asia, and over 17.8% from Central & South America. Asia and Central & South America have witnessed the largest relative growth in the last 8 days.

Over 5.44% of those affected — or over 435,800 people — have succumbed to the deadly disease. Almost 55,000 patients are in critical or serious condition. About 42% of the deaths are from Europe, over 33.3% from North America, almost 14% from Central & South America, and about 9.2% from Asia.

It took 13 days for the world to move from 1 million to 2 million (10 lakh to 20 lakh) cases, 12 days from 2 million to 3 million cases, again 12 days from 3 million to 4 million cases, 11 days from 4 million to 5 million, 9 days from 5 million to 6 million, again 9 days from 6 million to 7 million, and only 8 days from 7 million to 8 million cases.

On June 7, I had written that we may hit the 8 million case mark in 8 days and I was right. So, is 8 days the new normal? Are we going to reach 10 million (1 crore) cases in the next 16 days — by July 1 — or is the growth going to accelerate or slow down? In the last 4 days, there have been an average of 134,296 new cases per day, which means that we may even cross the 10 million milestone in 15 days instead of 16.

Some of the deadliest pandemics of the last century were:

SPANISH FLU (1918-20) infected 500 million people, about a quarter of the world’s population at the time. The death toll was anywhere from 40 million to 100 million, making it one of the deadliest pandemics in history.

AIDS (1981-present), which peaked between the years 2005 and 2012, has claimed an estimated 30-36 million lives in the past 39 years.

ASIAN FLU (1957-58), which had its roots in China, resulted in 1 to 2 million deaths worldwide, with 116,000 in the USA alone.

HONG KONG FLU (1968-70), caused by an H3N2 strain of the influenza A virus, caused about 1 million deaths, including about 100,000 in USA alone.

The H1N1 SWINE FLU (2009-2010), which originated in Mexico, infected 700 million to 1.4 billion people (10.2 to 20.4% of the then world population), though the number of confirmed cases were only 1,632,710. This Swine Flu pandemic is estimated to have killed between 180,000 and 575,000 people, though the number of lab-confirmed deaths reported to the WHO (World Health Organization) was just 18,449.

Though the Coronavirus Pandemic is unlikely to reach anywhere close to the infection or death count of the Spanish Flu or AIDS, the number of confirmed COVID-19 cases is already 4.9 times higher that of the H1N1 Swine Flu.

The global death count from COVID-19 is already 23.6 times higher than the number of lab-confirmed H1N1 Swine Flu deaths reported to the WHO and is just 24-25 days away from reaching the maximum estimated death count. At the current growth in number of deaths, the world will reach a death count of 1 million (10 lakh) in about 132 days.

USA’s death count from COVID-19 has already crossed the country’s death count from the Hong Kong Flu as well as the Asian Flu.

READ THESE RECENT POSTS:

India Overtakes Spain and UK to reach World No.4 rank in Covid-19 cases

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Russia Crosses 500,000 Covid-19 Cases

Indian Government is Wrong: Covid-19 has not been managed well

Pakistan Crosses 100,000 Covid-19 Cases

USA Crosses 2,000,0000 Covid-19 Cases

Maharashtra Now Has More Coronavirus Cases than China

What Does this World Map Show?

LATEST UPDATES (at 8:45 am UTC; June 15, 2020):

  • The world has crossed 8.013 million cases
  • The global death toll is over 435,950
  • India has reported 333,257 cases and 9,524 deaths so far. In number of cases, India is No.4 in the world (up from No.22 on April 14). India’s Maharashtra state, with 107,958 cases, would rank No.17 if it were a country (up from No.44 on April 24)
  • 6 countries have crossed 250,000 cases (up from 0 on April 1)
  • 13 countries have crossed 150,000 cases (up from 1 on April 3)
  • 16 countries have crossed 100,000 cases (up from 3 on April 3)
  • 25 countries have crossed 50,000 cases (up from 8 on April 3)
  • 39 countries have crossed 25,000 cases (up from 11 on April 3)
  • 52 countries have crossed 15,000 cases (up from 16 on April 16)
  • 60 countries have crossed 10,000 cases (up from 23 on April 16)
  • 3 countries have crossed 40,000 deaths (up from 0 on April 3)
  • 6 countries have crossed 25,000 deaths (up from 0 on April 3)
  • 15 countries have crossed 5,000 deaths (up from 5 on April 3)
  • 21 countries have crossed 2,500 deaths (up from 7 on April 3)
  • 32 countries have crossed 1,000 deaths (up from 10 on April 3)
  • 43 countries have crossed 500 deaths (up from 16 on April 16)

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