NDO – The number of global COVID-19 cases reached nearly 240.8 million, including more than 4.9 million deaths, as of 6am on October 16 Vietnamese time, according to the statistics website worldometers.info.

The past several days have seen a decline in the both the number of deaths and new infections in the hotspots in Asia and Europe, with only a few countries recording high infection rates, including the US, India, Iran, Russia and Brazil.

The US came back as the country with the highest number of daily infections at 86,000 cases while the number of deaths also soared to over 1,600.

It also remained as the world’s worst hit country with nearly 741,900 deaths out of the 45.6 million cases recorded, followed by India with 451,900 deaths out of 34 million cases. Brazil came third with 602,200 deaths out of 21.6 million infections.

Peru has the highest ratio of deaths to population, with 606 deaths per 100,000 people, followed by Bosnia-Herzegovina and North Macedonia with 338 and 331 deaths per 100,000, respectively.

By region, Latin America and the Caribbean recorded 45.4 million cases and 1.5 million deaths. Europe logged 70 million cases and 1.3 million deaths while Asia reported 1.1 million deaths in 76.8 million cases. North America recorded 54.1 million cases and 1.1 million deaths. Africa logged 214,800 deaths and Oceania recorded 3,100 deaths.

According to worldometers.info, ASEAN countries recorded a further 29,639 cases on October 13, while the death toll rose to 272.400. The situation in Southeast Asia has been improving with new infections and deaths going flat in the past few days.

Indonesia remains the hotspot, but the number of new cases and deaths have been falling sharply in recent days. The country only recorded over 1,000 cases and 48 deaths in the past 24 hours.

The coronavirus has so far killed over 270,200 people among the 12.6 million cases in Southeast Asia. The situation remains worrying, but there are signs in some countries that the pandemic will be soon over.

With rising vaccination rates, many countries in the world are revising their strategies from zero-COVID to living with COVID, with some countries expected to open their borders starting from November.