The number of global coronavirus cases exceeded 1 million on Thursday, with over 52,000 deaths reported, as the pandemic continued to spread throughout the United States. 

The death toll also surged in Spain and Italy, according to a Reuters tally of official data. 

Italy has so far recorded the highest number of casualties – at 13,900 – followed by Spain. The United States has the most confirmed cases of any country, surpassing 240,000, the data revealed. 

Since the virus was first detected in China late last year, it has spread around the world, resulting in governments ordering the shut down of businesses, airlines grounding their flights and hundreds of millions of people being forced to stay in lockdown to limit the spread of the outbreak. 

As the U.S. government adopted measures to support the economy disrupted by the outbreak – as have governments and central banks around the world – weekly unemployment claims hiked to 6.6 million – the highest on record and doubling the peak hit last week. This was in line with economists’ predictions that the longest employment boom in U.S. history likely came to an end in March.

The death toll in Spain surpassed 10,000 on Thursday, after a record of 950 people died overnight. Officials in the health industry were encouraged by a decline in the number of daily cases and deaths. Jobs in Spain have been lost at a record rate since the country was put into lockdown, social security data showed on Thursday, with roughly 900,000 workers being made redundant since mid-March. 

Britain’s approach to the pandemic was initially quite calm, but Prime Minister Boris Johnson – who contracted the virus himself – has imposed strict social distancing measures after data revealed that a quarter of a million British citizens could die from the virus. 

In Italy, where cases hit a daily toll of 6,557 on March 21, the number of deaths reached 13,915 on Thursday. Italy makes up roughly 28% of all global fatalities, but the government was recently encouraged by numbers showing the fourth consecutive day in which cases stayed within the range of 4,050-4,782, appearing to have hit somewhat of a standstill. 

Italy was the hardest-hit country when the virus arrived in Europe and was the first Western nation to roll out harsh restrictions on movement and economic activity. 

The first 100,000 cases globally of Covid-19 – the respiratory illness caused by the coronavirus – were reported in roughly 55 days, and the first 500,000 cases in 76 days, according to a Reuters tally based on official data. 

 

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