Coronavirus cases worldwide surge past 5 million

A medical worker administers a test for a COVID-19 at a facility in Camden, N.J.(Matt Rourke/AP)

The total number of people around the globe sickened by coronavirus surged past 5 million early Thursday.

The grim milestone comes after World Health Organization Director General-Tedros Adhanom Gherbreyesus announced Wednesday that more than 100,000 new infections had been reported to the organization in the last 24 hours alone. During a news conference in Geneva, he said it marked the “most in a single day since the outbreak began.”

According to the latest data from Johns Hopkins University, there have now been more than 5 million confirmed cases of the virus and more than 328,000 deaths. Nearly another 2 million people worldwide have recovered from the fast-spreading COVID-19.

The United States, which has seen several regions slowly begin to reopen in recent weeks, remains the global leader in coronavirus cases and total number of deaths. As of Thursday, more than 1.5 million Americans have been diagnosed with COVID-19, including more than 93,000 who succumbed to the disease.

Since the pandemic first emerged in the Chinese city of Wuhan back in December, most of the U.S. has implemented lockdown measures and gathering restrictions to slow the virus spread. The government-mandated shutdowns have shuttered nonessential businesses and has forced millions of Americans out of work, sparking the worst unemployment numbers since the Great Depression.

Despite a rise in newly reported cases across the United States, which accounts for nearly a third of all infections globally, many governors nationwide have allowed for the scaling back of coronavirus guidelines with the hopes of reviving their local economies.

Still, experts have warned that reopening too early could cause a spike in both cases and deaths.

Almost two-thirds of the world’s cases have emerged in just four countries, Ghebreyesus noted. In addition to the United States, the group also includes Russia, which reported nearly 10,000 new cases in a single day on Tuesday, in addition to the UK and Brazil.

“We still have a long way to go in this pandemic,” Ghebreyesus said.

While the number of global cases continued to rise worldwide, outbreaks have declined considerably in once hard-hit nations like Germany and Italy. And China, once ground zero for the pandemic, has similarly reported a large drop in cases but has slowly reimposed some lesser lockdown measures to curb a second wave.

The true number of cases is also likely much higher than what researchers know as testing is still only able to capture a small portion of the number of those actually infected. Several nations and territories have also been accused of under-reporting their figures.

The U.S. is now conducting more than 300,000 tests per day and has run roughly 10 million tests — a small fraction of its population of approximately 328 million people.