Coronavirus: World hits devastating record six months after Australia's first official case

Saturday marks six months to the day that Australia’s first coronavirus case was confirmed.

Yahoo News Australia reported at the time a Victorian man in his 50s was confirmed as testing positive to COVID-19 on January 25.

At the time China had confirmed 41 deaths and 1,000 people were estimated to have been affected by the virus worldwide.

Fast forward half a year and the virus has been declared a pandemic by the World Health Organisation, which announced the latest grim milestone overnight, with a new record set for daily new cases across the globe.

Meanwhile Australia to date has recorded 140 deaths with no telling when borders could open up again.

Melbourne has returned to stage three lockdown, and announced 357 new cases today while NSW reported 15 news cases in a 24-hour period before Saturday.

More than 100 Victorian schools and childcare centres have been closed and police patrol state borders with huge fines for those who breach mandatory orders.

Guests at funerals and weddings are now limited, pubs, clubs and restaurants now monitor customer numbers and supermarkets have regularly struggled with panic buyers stripping shelves of daily necessities.

Global record increase

In the last 24 hours WHO has reported a record increase in global coronavirus cases, with the total rising by 284,196 in one day.

The previous record for new cases was 259,848 on July 18.

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As of Saturday, John Hopkins University reported more than 638,238 deaths had been recorded world wide.

The US has the highest number of official deaths with 145,333, followed by Brazil with 85,238 and the UK with 45,762 deaths.

Deaths have averaged 5,000 a day in July, up from an average of 4,600 a day in June.

The largest increases in new deaths included 3,876 in Peru, 1,284 in Brazil, 1,074 in the United States, 790 in Mexico and 740 in India.

Peru recently reviewed its COVID-19 data and in one day increased its total death toll by 3,000 to a total of more than 17,000 fatalities.

India on July 17 became the third country in the world to record more than 1 million cases of the new coronavirus, behind only the US and Brazil.

with AAP

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