Another grim milestone: Global COVID-19 tally crosses 100 million

An elderly woman receives the second dose of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine shot at a care home in Sofia, Bulgaria, on Wednesday. Pic/AFP

More than 100 million novel Coronavirus cases was recorded worldwide on Tuesday, according to the Johns Hopkins University data. The global case count reached 10,00,32,461, with a total of 21,49,818 deaths worldwide, as of 2.22 pm local time.

The number of cases, compiled from data provided by national health agencies, represents just a fraction of the real infections as the virus has spread around the globe. The US, which passed 25 million cases last weekend, remains the country with the largest outbreak - and the largest death toll of over 4,20,000.

US ramping up deliveries
Answering growing frustration over vaccine shortages, Biden announced that the US is ramping up deliveries to hard-pressed states over the next three weeks and expects to provide enough doses to vaccinate 300 million Americans by the end of the summer or early fall.

To buy 200M doses
Biden, calling the push a "wartime effort," said on Tuesday the administration was working to buy an additional 100 million doses of each of the two approved coronavirus vaccines. He acknowledged that states in recent weeks have been left guessing how much vaccine they will have from one week to the next. In another day of grim milestones, Britain surged past 1,00,000 COVID-19 deaths, and other European nations looked to tighten their borders, hoping to keep out new, more transmissible virus strains.

Vaccine delays: EU-AstraZeneca dispute heats up
The European Union's dispute with AstraZeneca intensified on Wednesday with the drugmaker denying the EU's assertion that it had pulled out of talks on vaccine supplies. AstraZeneca said it still planned to meet with EU officials in Brussels later in the day. The spat happened after AstraZeneca rejected the EU's accusation that the company had failed to honor its commitments to deliver vaccines.

2,73,230
No. of new cases reported globally in the past 24 hours

10,03,81,254
Total no. of cases worldwide

21,60,783
Total no. of deaths worldwide