Global coronavirus death toll jumps to 100,000; Pakistan's tally crosses 4,700.

ISLAMABAD: The number of deaths linked to the novel coronavirus reached 100,000 on Friday, as the tally of total cases worldwide passed 1.6 million. In Pakistan, the nationwide tally of COVID-19 patients soared past 4,700 on Friday, with 2,279 cases reported in Punjab, 1,214 in Sindh, 656 in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, 220 in Balochistan, 215 in Gilgit Baltistan, 107 in Islamabad and 33 in Azad Jammu and Kashmir. The virus has claimed 69 lives so far, while at least 556 coronavirus patients have recovered.

The first-ever death came in the central Chinese city of Wuhan on Jan 9. It took 83 days for the first 50,000 deaths to be recorded and just eight more for the toll to climb to 100,000. The toll has been accelerating at a daily rate of between 6% and 10% over the past week, and there were almost 7,300 deaths globally reported on Thursday.

The death toll now compares with that of London's Great Plague in the mid-1660s, which killed an estimated 100,000 people, about a third of the city's population at the time. But it is still far short of the so-called Spanish flu, which began in 1918 and is estimated to have killed more than 20 million people by the time it petered out in 1920.

In Pakistan, Sindh Chief Minister Murad Ali Shah said 86 new cases of novel coronavirus were reported across the province on Friday, taking the provincial tally to 1214. In a video statement, the chief minister said one more person has died from COVID-19 during the last 24 hours. He said the death toll in Sindh province stands at 22. The chief minister cautioned that the spread of the coronavirus needs to be contained amid a rising number of cases in the province. "All the cases emerging now are locally transmitted and we have to contain [the virus]," he said in the video message.

Another 70 individuals kept in isolated quarantine facility in Sukkur were declared fit and healthy after spending more than 14 days by themselves. Commissioner Sukkur Division Shafique Ahmed...