Coronavirus pandemic reaches 3 million cases worldwide

Medical staff check a monitor as they tend to a patient in the emergency COVID-19 ward at the San Carlo Hospital in Milan, Italy, Thursday, April 16, 2020. The new coronavirus causes mild or moderate symptoms for most people, but for some, especially older adults and people with existing health problems, it can cause more severe illness or death. (AP Photo/Antonio Calanni)
Medical staff check a monitor as they tend to a patient in the emergency COVID-19 ward at the San Carlo Hospital in Milan, Italy, Thursday, April 16, 2020. The new coronavirus causes mild or moderate symptoms for most people, but for some, especially older adults and people with existing health problems, it can cause more severe illness or death. (AP Photo/Antonio Calanni)(Antonio Calanni/AP)

The coronavirus pandemic reached another milestone Monday, with more than 3 million infections confirmed worldwide since the disease was discovered in China just four months ago, according to the latest data from Johns Hopkins University.
The new record comes less than a month after the official global tally hit its first million, a sign that the unprecedented health crisis continues to spread through the world and that governments are finally improving testing capabilities.
The true number of cases, however, is likely much higher as many countries are still struggling to test their citizens and many people who contracted COVID-19 had mild or no symptoms and were never even tested.
About a third of all confirmed cases are here in the U.S., where the official number of infections was close to 1 million on Monday.
The highly contagious disease, which for weeks appeared to be contained to China, has been reported in nearly every country in the world, causing a devastating health crisis that has forced billions of people into isolation and continues to disrupt the global economy.
Several U.S. states are beginning to slowly relax lockdown measures that have been in place in most of the country for weeks, but health officials warn that some social isolation will remain for months.
“Social distancing will be with us through the summer to really ensure that we protect one another as we move through these phases,” Dr. Deborah Birx, the White House coronavirus task force coordinator, told NBC News’ “Meet the Press” on Sunday.
Johns Hopkins’ death toll, meanwhile, has topped 207,000 worldwide, with the U.S. accounting for nearly 55,000 of them. The countries with the most fatalities after the U.S. are all in Europe, including Spain, Italy, France and the U.K., all of which have confirmed at least 20,000 deaths.
In a bit of encouraging news, the number of people who tested positive and have fully recovered was close to 900,000 on Monday. That group now includes British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, who returned to work Monday after a weeks-long battle with the disease.

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