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Cumulative global COVID-19 cases surpassed 300 million on Thursday amid a surge attributed to the now dominant omicron variant of the coronavirus.
By 7 p.m. EST, the total number global cases confirmed to date swelled to 302,588,049, a figure that has resulted in nearly 5.5 million virus-related fatalities worldwide, according to a Johns Hopkins University tally.
Meanwhile, nearly 32 million new cases have been confirmed within the past 28 days, and more than one-quarter of that figure, or more than 8.8 million cases, were diagnosed in the United States.
The United Kingdom and France are the next-closest nations in terms of surging COVID-19 diagnoses, with nearly 3.4 million and nearly 3.1 million new cases confirmed within the past 28 days, according to the Johns Hopkins data.
According to The New York Times, it took more than one year for the world to accumulate its first 100 million coronavirus cases and half that time to record the second 100 million.
>> Related: Coronavirus: US averaging 100,000 new daily COVID-19 cases; global infections top 200M
This third milestone comes five months to the day after the delta variant fueled a summer surge in new cases that saw the 200 millionth global case reported on Aug. 6.
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