Sharp spike in infections sees COVID-19 tally hit 50 million mark

As a second wave sweeps across Europe, the global tally of COVID-19 infections topped the 50 million mark on Sunday. 

According to a Reuters tally, the second wave of the virus in the past 30 days has accounted for a quarter of the total. 

The United States has been particularly hard hit with over 100,000 new cases reported each day. A surge in infections in Europe also contributed to the spike in overall numbers. 

Reuters reported that the latest seven-day average shows global daily infections are rising by more than 540,000.

More than 1.25 million people have died from the disease.

However, as Reuters states, the pandemic’s recent acceleration has been ferocious. It took 32 days for the number of cases to rise from 30 million to 40 million. It took just 21 days to add another 10 million.

The global second wave is testing healthcare systems across Europe, prompting Germany, France and Britain to order many citizens back to their homes again.

Denmark, which imposed a new lockdown on its population in several northern areas, ordered the culling of its 17 million minks after a mutation of the coronavirus found in the animals spread to humans.

The latest US surge coincided with the last month of election campaigning in which President Donald Trump minimized the severity of the pandemic and his successful challenger, Joe Biden, urged a more science-based approach.

Trump’s rallies, some open-air and with few masks and little social distancing, led to 30,000 additional confirmed cases and likely led to more than 700 deaths, Stanford University economists estimated in a research paper.

Reuters reported that in Asia, India has the world’s second-highest caseload but has seen a steady slowdown since September. Total cases exceeded 8.5 million cases on Friday.