Coronavirus cases reach 1m worldwide with more than 50,000 deaths
More than a million people have been diagnosed with coronavirus in the four months since it was first observed in China in December, officials at Johns Hopkins have confirmed.
The first 100,000 cases were reported in around 55 days and the first 500,000 in 76 days. Cases doubled to 1 million within the past eight days.
Total cases reported by Thursday grew 10% from a day earlier, the first time the rate has hit double digits since the virus took hold outside China.
The virus first spread in the city of Wuhan in China’s Hubei province in December, before reaching across to Italy, Iran and South Korea and spreading further.
From there the epicentre of the virus has increasingly become Europe and the US, which has so far reported the highest number of cases worldwide.
So far the virus has been present in more than 50,000 deaths.
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