Confirmed COVID-19 cases reach 20 million worldwide

PROVIDENCE, R.I. — The confirmed number of coronavirus cases in the world has reached 20 million. That’s according to the tally kept by Johns Hopkins University.

Health officials believe the actual number is much higher, given testing limitations and the fact that as many as 40% of all those who are infected have no symptoms.

The U.S., India and Brazil have together accounted for nearly two-thirds of all cases since the world hit 15 million on July 22.

The number of new community infections reported in China fell to just 13 on Tuesday, while the semi-autonomous city of Hong Kong saw a further decline to 69 new cases.

The mainland also saw 31 new cases brought by Chinese travelers from abroad arriving at eight different provinces and cities. China requires testing and a two-week quarantine of all new arrivals and has barred most foreigners from entering the country.

All new locally transmitted cases were in the northwestern region of Xinjiang, whose main city, Urumqi, has been at the center of the country’s latest major outbreak.

China has reported a total of 4,634 deaths from COVID-19 among 84,712 cases. Hong Kong has been bringing numbers of new cases down since its latest outbreak last month, partly by mandating mask-wearing in public settings and stepping-up social distancing restrictions. The territory has reported 4,148 cases and 55 deaths.

In UK, The British government is laying off 6,000 coronavirus contact tracers and deploying the rest to work in local teams, in an acknowledgment that the centralized track-and-trace system is not working well enough.

The U.K. has been criticized for failing to keep track of infected people’s contacts early in the pandemic, a factor that contributed to the country’s high death toll of more than 46,500, the most in Europe.

Since May the country has rapidly set up a test-and-trace system to try to contain the outbreak, recruiting thousands of staff in a matter of weeks. But the system, which relies on telephone call centers, has failed to reach more than a quarter of contacts of people who have tested positive for the virus.

Some frustrated local authorities have set up their own contact-tracing networks, which have proved more effective because they know communities better and can go door-to-door if needed.

The national test-and-trace program said Monday it was officially adopting that localized approach. Some 6,000 contact tracers will be laid off this month, and the remaining 12,000 will work with local public health authorities around the country.

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Source: AP