Coronavirus: Death toll nears 600 in Switzerland

The death toll from novel coronavirus in Switzerland has risen to 584, a jump of 25 new deaths from the figures on Sunday, health officials said.

The country's public health agency said on Monday that number of infected cases also rose to 21,652 from 21,100 yesterday.

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Even though with a population of 8.5 million, Switzerland is amongst the worst-hit coronavirus countries as it has reported higher infections per 100,000 people.

After the country reported 76 new deaths on Saturday, health ministry official Daniel Koch said: "we have not yet reached the peak".

Earlier, Switzerland released nearly $60 billion buffer to deal with the heavy blow caused by the coronavirus outbreak to the economy and to contain the spread of the virus.

On Saturday, the economic ministry said nearly 1.3 million people, or a quarter of its workforce have applied for temporary unemployment benefits since the beginning of thiscrisis.

Meanwshile, more than 60,000 people have died in Europe, with most deaths in Italy, Spain, Britain and France, according to AFP tally.

As per the data, most fatalities were reported in Italy, 15,877, followed by Spain 13,055.

Globally, COVID-19 has taken more than 70,000 lives and United States has recorded second-highest fatalities 9,648.