Washington, Apr 24: The number of coronavirus cases in the US has surpassed 850,000, Johns Hopkins University Coronavirus Resource Center data revealed on Thursday (local time).
The country now has registered 8,56,209 cases overall, according to the data, including 47,272 deaths.
The US currently leads the world in the number of reported COVID-19 deaths and confirmed cases.
There are more than 2.6 million COVID-19 cases around the world and more than 1,85,000 deaths, according to the data.
Feb 11: China reported 108 new coronavirus deaths on February 10, the highest daily toll since the outbreak began in Wuhan late last year, as two senior officials in the hard-hit province of Hubei were removed from their jobs.
The total number of deaths on the mainland reached 1,016 in the 24 hours until midnight, the National Health Commission said on Tuesday.
Some 2,478 new cases were confirmed, bringing the total to 42,638.
Of the new deaths, 103 were in the province of Hubei, including 67 in the provincial capital of Wuhan. The virus is thought to have originated there in a market that sold seafood as well as wild animals.
Two senior health officials in the province - Zhang Jin who was Party Secretary of the health commission for Hubei and Ling Yingzi who was director of the Hubei Provincial Health Commission - were both removed from their posts, state media reported on Tuesday, a day after Chinese President Xi Jinping visited health facilities in Beijing.
In his first public appearance since the outbreak began, Xi donned a face mask and had his temperature checked while visiting medical workers and patients in the capital.
"We have seen very little of Xi Jinping since the outbreak began but he was out and about in Beijing on Monday," Al Jazeera's Katrina Yu said from Beijing. "He has been trying to rally the troops saying: 'We can win this battle.' But it's also a sign that the battle is far from over."
The other fatalities on Monday were in the provinces of Heilongjiang, Anhui and Henan and the cities of Tianjin and Beijing, the National Health Commission said.
During a meeting chaired by Premier Li Keqiang on Monday, a group of leaders tasked with beating the virus said it would work to solve raw material and labour shortages and boost supplies of masks and protective clothing.
They said nearly 20,000 medical personnel from around the country had already been sent to Wuhan, and more medical teams were also on the way.
Sydney, Jul 28: Nearly 3 billion koalas, kangaroos and other native Australian animals were killed or displaced by bushfires in 2019 and 2020, a study by the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) said on Tuesday, triple the group's earlier estimates.
Some 143 million mammals, 2.46 billion reptiles, 180 million birds and 51 million frogs were impacted by the country's worst bushfires in decades, the WWF said.
When the fires were still blazing, the WWF estimated the number of affected animals at 1.25 billion. The fires destroyed more than 11 million hectares (37 million acres) across the Australian southeast, equal to about half the area of the United Kingdom.
"This ranks as one of the worst wildlife disasters in modern history," said WWF-Australia Chief Executive Officer Dermot O'Gorman in a statement.
The project leader Lily Van Eeden, from the University of Sydney, said the research was the first continent-wide analysis of animals impacted by the bushfires, and "other nations can build upon this research to improve understanding of bushfire impacts everywhere".
The total number included animals which were displaced because of destroyed habitats and now faced lack of food and shelter or the prospect of moving to habitat that was already occupied.
The main reason for raising the number of animal casualties was that researchers had now assessed the total affected area, rather than focusing on the most affected states, they said.
After years of drought made the Australian bush unusually dry, the country battled one of its worst bushfire seasons ever from September 2019 to March 2020, resulting in 34 human deaths and nearly 3,000 homes lost.
Beijing, Jan 25: The death toll due to the novel coronavirus (2019-nCoV) outbreak in China has soared to 41, while the number of infected persons were 1,287, the National Health Commission said on Saturday.
The Commission said that 444 fresh cases were reported since Friday, with 237 patients in serious conditions, while 38 had been cured and discharged from hospitals, reports Efe news.
Health authorities have carried out check-ups on 15,197 people who have come into close contact with the infected persons. Nearly 14,000 of them continue to be monitored for symptoms.
The others cases outside of China were reported in France (two), Australia (one), Thailand (four including two cured), Japan (two including one cured), South Korea (two), the US (two), Vietnam (two), Singapore (three), Nepal (one), Hong Kong (five), Macao (two) and Taiwan (three).
The symptoms of the new coronavirus, provisionally designated by the World Health Organization as 2019-nCoV, are similar to those of cold but may be accompanied by fever and fatigue, dry cough and dyspnea (shortness of breath).
The WHO has so far to declared the outbreak as an international health emergency.
Strict measures were being carried out in China, which include complete suspension of transport in around a dozen cities in Hubei province and also cancelling Chinese New Year celebrations.
Traditional events at Lama Temple and Ditan Park in Beijing were cancelled due to the risk of spreading the virus, authorities reported Friday, while the famous Forbidden City has also been closed indefinitely.
Wuhan, the capital of Hubei, where the virus was first reported, has been on lockdown since Thursday to prevent further spread of the virus and the city's authorities have begun to build a "special hospital" with 1,000 beds for infected patients.
"Construction of the special hospital with a capacity of 1,000 beds for patients with #nCoV2019 has begun in Wuhan," official China Daily said on Twitter.
The hospital in Wuhan will be based on the model of a similar facility that was built in just seven days in Beijing to deal with SARS in 2003.
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