Confirmed coronavirus cases hit 1 million worldwide

[sandensea]

Source: Los Angeles Times

The number of coronavirus infections worldwide has hit 1 million, with more than 50,000 deaths, according to the tally kept by Johns Hopkins University.

The figures were another bleak milestone in the pandemic that has forced the lockdown of entire countries and brought economies to a shuddering halt.

Still, the true numbers of deaths and infections are believed to be much higher, in part because of differences in counting practices, many mild cases that have gone unreported, testing shortages, and suspicions of a cover-up in some countries.

The coronavirus outbreak has thrown 10 million Americans out of work in just two weeks, the swiftest, most stunning collapse the U.S. job market has ever witnessed, and economists warn unemployment could reach levels not seen since the Depression, as the economic damage piles up around the world.

Read more: https://www.latimes.com/world-nation/story/2020-04-02/coronavirus-one-million-cases

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Italian police patrol an empty Piazza di Spagna in Rome.

The Covid-19 crisis has hit the Mediterranean nation especially hard.

[truthisfreedom]

1. 50,000 dead divided by 1,000,000 infected

5% mortality? We obviously need more tested. There must be 2.5M infected.

[sandensea]

2. No doubt about it

While in many countries there've been good faith efforts to test as many as possible, in others they've been unable - or unwilling - to carry out large-scale testing.

You have despots like Brazil's Bolsonaro and (of course) our own Cheeto, whose sole concern is political damage control. These characters are not too keen on counting (unless it's money).

Plus in countries like Brazil, you have large urban slum populations (favelas) in which public health has only a minimal reach as it is.

There are believed to be thousands of Covid cases in the favelas - mostly acquired by servants in well-to-do homes (whose owners vacationed in Europe, and brought it back to South America).

Those cases, as you can imagine, are mostly left out of official tallies.

Then there's India!