The number of COVID-19 infections worldwide topped 200 million on Wednesday, according to the Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center.
Why it matters: The milestone highlights the effect of the highly contagious Delta variant. It took about a year for the world to reach 100 million cases, and only six months to double that, the New York Times reported.
The big picture: Weekly coronavirus cases have surged globally for more than a month, with the most significant increases in the Eastern Mediterranean and Western Pacific regions, according to a report published Tuesday by the World Health Organization.
- During the past week the highest new daily case numbers were reported in the U.S., India, Indonesia, Brazil and Iran, per CNN.
- The global COVID-19 death toll hit more than 4.25 million Wednesday, per Johns Hopkins.