PARIS: More than 10,000 people worldwide have died from the novel coronavirus in the last 24 hours as both Europe and the United States are battling a second wave of the pandemic, according to an AFP tally at 1100 GMT on Thursday.

With 10,010 recorded in the past 24 hours, it is the first time since the start of the pandemic that the daily number of deaths worldwide has surpassed the symbolic level of 10,000.

The European region including Russia accounted for nearly half of those deaths, with 4,961 fatalities in a single day, Latin America and the Caribbean registered 1,868 and the United States 1,330.

In all, the novel coronavirus has killed at least 1,285,160 people since the outbreak emerged in China last December, according to the tally compiled by AFP from official sources.

At least 52,151,580 cases of coronavirus have been registered. Of these, at least 33,563,800 are now considered recovered. The tallies, using data collected by AFP from national authorities and information from the World Health Organization (WHO), probably reflect only a fraction of the actual number of infections. Many countries are testing only symptomatic or the most serious cases. Based on latest reports, the countries with the most new deaths were United States with 1,330 new deaths, followed by Italy with 623 and United Kingdom with 595.

The United States is the worst-affected country with 241,808 deaths from 10,402,274 cases. At least 3,997,175 people have been declared recovered. After the US, the hardest-hit countries are Brazil with 163,373 deaths from 5,748,375 cases, India with 128,121 deaths from 8,683,916 cases, Mexico with 96,430 deaths from 986,177 cases, and the United Kingdom with 50,365 deaths from 1,256,725 cases.

The country with the highest number of deaths compared to its population is Belgium with 119 fatalities per 100,000 inhabitants, followed by Peru with 106, Spain 86 and Brazil 77. —AFP