About half of the world’s 1.4 million confirmed coronavirus cases are in Europe

In this March 25, 2020 photo, medical staff tend to patients at the intensive care unit of the Casalpalocco COVID-19 Clinic on the outskirts of Rome. The pressures on intensive care units in Italy and Spain may have eased in recent days as new coronavirus cases decline, but the psychological toll the pandemic has taken on the doctors and nurses who work there is only now beginning to emerge. (AP Photo/Domenico Stinellis, File)(Domenico Stinellis/AP)

Coronavirus cases in Europe account for around half of the global total, which stand at more than 1.4 million.

“As of today, Europe remains very much at the center of the pandemic — and on the one hand we have reason to be optimistic, and on the other to be very concerned,” Hans Kluge, the regional director of WHO Europe, said early Wednesday.

Worldwide, 1,441,128 people have been infected with the sickness, 687,236 of them in the “European Region," Kluge continued. In the same area, made up of 53 countries and seven territories, 52,824 have succumbed to the illness.

“Seven of the top ten countries that are most affected across the globe are located in the European Region: Following USA, we have Spain, Italy, Germany, France, and then after China and Iran, the United Kingdom, Turkey and Switzerland,” he said.

“We’re also seeing higher, or much higher than expected levels of mortality from all causes in some countries. This unexpected increase is mainly in people over the age of 65, and is a marker for COVID-19 activity since mid-March.”

With nearly 400,000 infections as of Wednesday morning, the United States remains the worldwide leader in confirmed cases. Still, the death toll in both Spain and Italy, where the second and third most cases have been reported, is higher than the one in the U.S., which currently stands at 12,911.

Earlier this week, the number of deaths linked to COVID-19 climbed past 10,000 in France. As of Wednesday morning, the nation has reported just more than 110,000 cases.

In Spain, where 146,690 people have been sickened, 14,555 coronavirus patients have died. Meanwhile in Italy, 17,127 people have succumbed to the illness, according to the latest data from Johns Hopkins University.

Kluge said the world should be encouraged by the recent slowing of the virus in both of the hard-hit nations. While Spain has surpassed Italy in its number of cases, “after restrictive measures were implemented, the growth in cases appears to have slowed and the rate of new deaths is now showing sings of decline.”