Global COVID-19 deaths pass one million

The world has today passed the harrowing milestone of more than one million deaths from COVID-19, as total cases of the virus now exceed 33.5 million.

This means almost one in every 200 people on the planet has been infected with the virus, and that's just the recorded cases that we know about.

Around one in five of all deaths have been recorded in the USA at 209,808, followed by high fatality numbers in Brazil (142,161), India (96,351) and Mexico (76,603).

There are currently more than 7.6 million active cases of the virus worldwide, and on this measurement the US accounts for around one in every three recorded active cases.

Meanwhile, India has almost one million active cases and has the highest rate of new daily deaths at 777.

France's recent resurgence of COVID-19 means it has the fifth-highest number of active cases at more than 415,000, followed by Russia, Argentina, Mexico, the Ukraine, Peru and Belgium.

In stark contrast, Australia only has 421 active cases and new daily case numbers today stand at 11, as well as seven new deaths.

Prime Minister Scott Morrison today described the one million deaths statistic as a "milestone that no one would have ever wanted to have seen passed".

"It is a reminder that we are living in the midst of a global pandemic. This is a pandemic that has been visited upon Australia from outside our shores, and is one that has impacted on us greatly," he said.

"In Australia, 882 lives have been lost to COVID-19, 670 of those in aged care. 

"Australia sits amongst a handful of countries that have been able to limit the economic blow, as well as limiting the health blow to our country," he said, also congratulating the efforts of Victorians to start to bring the virus under control in the country's most heavily affected state.

Updated at 12:32pm AEST on 29 September 2020.