More than 200,000 people worldwide now dead from COVID-19 virus

More than 200,000 people worldwide have now died from the COVID-19 virus and there are more than 2.8 million confirmed cases according to Johns Hopkins University.

It comes after the number of fatalities in the US passed 50,000, as the Americans endure the world's deadliest outbreak.

Five countries have now reported death tolls above 20,000 although the way fatalities are counted varies widely.

The US, Italy and Spain have seen the highest number of reported fatalities.

The UK's Department of Health announced yesterday that more than 20,000 people had now died with coronavirus in UK hospitals.

Home Secretary Priti Patel described the figure as a "tragic and terrible milestone" and said, "the entire nation is grieving".

France, which does include deaths in care homes in its statistics, said its death toll had risen by 369 yesterday.

There have been 22,614 virus deaths in France since the start of March.

Australia has 6,687 confirmed cases with 79 deaths while New Zealand has 1,117 cases with 13 deaths.

[Source:BBC]