Global deaths from coronavirus top 50,000

The number of deaths caused by the coronavirus outbreak around the world has grown past 50,000, according to a tracking service operated by the Johns Hopkins University medical system.
The map showed the total number of deaths has passed 51,000 around the world as of Thursday, while the total number of confirmed cases passed 1 million.
Though the milestone was officially passed Thursday, health officials have raised doubts about accurate death counts in some countries, including China, which has been accused of hiding its number of total cases and deaths from global health authorities.
In Italy, the hardest-hit country in Europe, the death count is under question as well due to reports of elderly and other residents dying from the virus before being hospitalized.
“There are many more dead than are officially declared. But this is not a j’accuse. People died and they were never tested because time and resources are limited,” Eugenio Fossati, deputy mayor of Coccaglio, a town in Italy, told The Wall Street Journal.
In the U.S., total cases of the disease currently sit at just over 235,000 while more than 5,500 deaths have been reported.
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