Coronavirus Watch

Global Statistics

Cases of the Covid-19 pandemic around the world are now over 25, 8 million, and 859,927 people have died. Some 18, 1 million people have recovered.

More than 6 million cases of coronavirus have been reported in the US, and more than 188,000 people have died.

Brazil’s Health Ministry has reported 40,030 new Covid-19 cases over the past 24 hours, bringing the total number of cases in the country to at least 3,950,931. The ministry also reported 1,025 new coronavirus deaths on Tuesday, raising the country’s death toll to 122,596. Brazil’s economy contracted by a record 9.7 percent in the second quarter of 2020, plunging into recession as coronavirus lockdowns hit home, the official statistics agency said.

India’s infection rate has increased exponentially in recent weeks. It took almost six months for the country to record 1 million cases, another three weeks to hit 2 million, and only 16 more days to hit 3 million. The country reported the highest daily increase as 78, 169 cases were confirmed to bring the total number of cases to 3,766,108.

The total number of coronavirus cases in Russia have passed the one million mark after 4,729 new infections were reported. That brought the country’s total tally to 1,000,048. Russia’s coronavirus crisis centre said 123 new deaths had been confirmed in the last 24 hours. 

 The United Kingdom recorded 1,295 daily confirmed cases of COVID-19, according to government data published on Tuesday, down from 1,406 a day earlier. Three people died within 28 days of testing positive for the disease, the daily statistics release said, bringing the total death toll under that measure to 41,504.

The Covid-19 death toll in South Africa has reached 14, 263, while the number of cases is now at 628, 259. The total number of recoveries is now at 549, 933 which is a recovery rate of 87%.  According to reports, South Africa’s economy is forecast to contract at least 7 percent this year and its budget deficit could balloon to as much as 16 percent of GDP because of the COVID-19 crisis.

Zimbabwe has 6559 confirmed cases after 62 new cases were recorded, including 5 241 recoveries and 203 deaths.

New Covid-19 study reveals more about possible risks to pregnant women

Researchers are learning more about what pregnant women may experience if they are infected with the coronavirus that causes Covid-19. 

Pregnant and recently pregnant women who are diagnosed with Covid-19 in the hospital appear to be less likely to have symptoms of fever and muscle pain but more likely to be admitted to the intensive care unit, according to a new paper published in the BMJ medical journal on Tuesday. 

The study also found pregnant women with Covid-19 are at increased risk of delivering preterm, but preterm birth rates were not high, and more study is needed.

The researchers also found in those studies that pregnant women with Covid-19 are at increased risk of delivering preterm and their babies being admitted to the neonatal unit, although overall rates of spontaneous preterm births were not high. Also, stillbirth and neonatal death rates were low, the researchers found. 

Limitations of the study: The paper had some limitations, including that the studies used in the review primarily reported on pregnant women who required visits to the hospital and not many studies reported outcomes by trimester. 

 “Reviews such as this can only be as good as the studies they summarise and it is important to note that a high proportion of the included studies have a substantial risk of bias,” Dr. Marian Knight, professor of maternal and child population health at the University of Oxford in the United Kingdom, said in a statement distributed by the UK-based Science Media Centre on Tuesday. CNN

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01/09/2020

 (Source: Kitco)