All-time coronavirus cases have surpassed 30 million, doubling in the past 2 months

• The number of reported coronavirus cases worldwide passed 30 million in the early hours of Friday, according to the Johns Hopkins University COVID-19 tracker.
• More than half of the 30,175,496 known cases as of Friday morning were recorded in the US, India, Brazil, and Russia.
• The figure has doubled in just under two months; the global case count reached 15 million on July 22.
• Almost a million deaths from the virus have been recorded.

The number of coronavirus cases reported worldwide passed 30 million in the early hours of Friday.

The figure has doubled in about two months after reaching 15 million on July 22.

In total, the new virus first identified in Wuhan, China, late last year had infected at least 30,175,496 people as of Friday morning, according to the Johns Hopkins University COVID-19 tracker.

That figure represents all-time cases, and many of those infected will have since recovered. Many have also died — so far 946,063 deaths have been attributed to COVID-19, according to the tracker.

The US has reported the most confirmed infections, at just under 6.7 million, followed by India, Brazil, and Russia. Those four nations represent more than half the number of known cases.

The US has also reported the most COVID-19 deaths of any country, with its official count expected to pass 200,000 within the next few days.

The World Health Organization declared the coronavirus a pandemic on March 11, when reported global cases stood at 126,000.

The true number of cases, and deaths, is higher than recorded by the Johns Hopkins tracker.

This is because not all who are infected are tested, and methods of reporting and classifying these figures varies by country. Some countries have been accused of intentionally underreporting cases.

Governments worldwide have taken varying responses to the emergence of the novel coronavirus while scientists scrambled to understand more about it.

Some countries, such as New Zealand, have kept numbers low through early action and lockdowns. South Korea never fully locked down but controlled its outbreak with strict contact tracing and widespread testing.

Six months after WHO declared a pandemic, governments' hopes are pinned on the 176 vaccines in development. The timelines on these vary, but a handful of them may be shown to work — or not — by the end of 2020.

Dr. Anthony Fauci, the US government's foremost infectious-disease expert, estimated during a recent interview with Business Insider's Hilary Brueck that daily life might begin to return to normal in the US by 2022, if a vaccine and public-health measures are used.