The number of coronavirus cases worldwide crossed the five-million mark on Wednesday, according to the World Health Organization.
So far, COVID-19 has infected 5,090,107 people across the globe, killing 329,735. The number of people to have recovered from the respiratory disease stands at 2,024,286.
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Israel has been able to control the outbreak, for the most part, noting relatively morbidity and mortality rates. As of Wednesday, 16,667 Israelis have contracted the virus, 279 died from it, and 13,504 have recovered.
Coronaviruses are a large family of viruses first identified in humans in the mid-1960s. Some cause the common cold, while others, found in bats, camels, and other animals have evolved into more severe illnesses. The COVID-19 pandemic, named for the year in which it erupted, is caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2, or SARS‑CoV‑2.
The latest million took 12 days, compared to 11 days that it took for the number to go from three to four million infections, WHO data showed.
"We still have a long way to go in this pandemic," WHO director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told a news conference. "We are very concerned about rising cases in low and middle-income countries."
Brazil, Russia and India are emerging as the new hot spots of the disease. The US, where lockdown protocols have been less strict than most nations, added 20,289 cases on Tuesday to remain on top of the list of countries recording new cases.
In less than five months since the disease was first reported, much of the world has now come to terms with a new reality in which social distancing is compulsory, masks are increasingly mandatory and much of leisure activities may be too dangerous till researchers find a vaccine.
Earlier this month WHO warned that COVID-19 "may never go away."
There are currently more than 100 potential vaccines in development.
