Dhaka, Dec. 10 -- The overall number of global Covid cases has now surpassed 268 million amid the Omicron-driven surge in several countries.

According to Johns Hopkins University (JHU), the total case count mounted to 268,484,455 while the death toll from the virus reached 5,286,785 Friday morning.

The US has recorded 49,660,358 cases to date, while more than 794,647 people have died so far from the virus in the country, as per the university data.

New cases in the US climbed from an average of nearly 95,000 a day on November 22 to almost 119,000 a day this week, and hospitalisations are up 25 per cent from a month ago. The increases are due almost entirely to the Delta variant, though the Omicron mutation has been detected in about 20...