In 2020, nearly 2 million died from coronavirus; 2021 begins with the hope of a vaccine

One year in Covid-19 left the world perplexed and shattered; there are almost two million deaths or more, due to the lack of information in many countries. 2021 arrives with the start of vaccination in more than 40 countries. Edit

247 – 2020 ends with the tragic mark of more than 1.8 million people killed by Covid-19. 2021 begins with the hope that the vaccine will be the light at the end of the tunnel that the planet has entered for a year, the Chinese authorities warned for the first time of an unidentified pneumonia in the city of Wuhan. More than 40 countries began vaccinating their populations in the last week of 2020. These nearly two million deaths from the virus, according to statistics, include only those officially reported with positive results in a PCR test. That is why the data are incomplete and difficult to compare by country, since not all follow the same methodology for their calculation, the journalist warns. Daniele grasso, from El País, in a report that detailed the figures for the pandemic. The total death toll must be higher and will take years to determine accurately. Brazil, for example, is one of the countries that did the least tests during the pandemic and experts warn that the real numbers of infections and deaths from covid-19 far exceed those registered by the Ministry of Health. According to the IBGE, as of November 28.6 million Brazilians had undergone an examination to detect whether they were infected, that is, around 13% of the population.

The United States (342,450 deaths), Brazil (194,949 deaths as of Thursday 31), India (148,738) and Mexico (124,897) are the countries with the highest number of deaths in the world. Of the 15 nations with the most deaths in relative terms, nine are in Europe. The year 2021 begins with the apprehension for the new coronavirus mutation, initially detected in the United Kingdom and already identified in Brazil and 56% more contagious, but also with anxiety and hope for mass vaccination, which began in more than 30 countries.

Death data are imperfect and difficult to compare between countries – like almost all the figures for this pandemic – but they allow us to glimpse the impact of the virus in each place. Europe is currently struggling with a second wave of less intensity than the first, but much longer. More coronavirus deaths have been reported since August than before: 325,000 since the beginning of the European summer and nearly 530,000 throughout the year. The United States, where more than 340,000 people have died of COVID-19 since March, is already in the middle of a third wave. There, hospitals were even more saturated than in previous waves, and the death rate per day for several weeks has remained above records for the first three quarters.

Brazil, which suffers from the negligence of the Jair Bolsonaro government in tackling the pandemic, saw the first wave drag on until mid-September, when more than 1,000 deaths were still taking place a day, at the same time that state and municipal governments were alleviating measures of social distance. After a short break, the country began December with a second wave of pandemic. The number of daily deaths has returned to triple digits and experts warn of the risks of collapse of public health systems in January. Although several countries are already vaccinating health professionals, the elderly and priority groups, Brazil has not yet presented a date for the start of a national immunization plan.

The first wave was a tsunami for almost all countries. The arrival of covid-19 stunned even those who had been waiting for years for a pandemic to arrive. “Everyone speculated that the great pandemic would be a mutation of the influenza virus, with the 1918 one as a reference”, reflects Antoni Trilla, head of the Preventive Medicine Service of the Hospital Clínic de Barcelona. Other coronaviruses had already appeared, such as those of sars and mers, but covid-19 was more complex. “It acquired the ability to transmit by air, through aerosols, and there are many asymptomatic people who are potentially infectious: it creates invisible patients who are circulating without knowing it,” says Trilla.

The data from the countries that published the difference in mortality also give clues about the sex and age of the victims: the pandemic hit the elderly more strongly and was more lethal for men than women. Spain stands out for having the highest excess mortality among people aged 15 to 64 and for being one of the few where there have been weeks that register a difference of more than 140% among those over 85 years of age. That is, of every 5 elderly people who died previously in this period in previous years, 12 died this year. The difference in this age group reached 80% in Italy, 30% in the United States and 20% in Germany. The rates are largely explained by the uncontrolled intrusion of the virus in Spanish asylums in the first semester, according to the epidemiologist Marina Pollán, from the CSIC (Spanish Agency for Scientific Research), to EL PAÍS. “Nursing homes were particularly terrible places in Spain because there were large outbreaks, many deaths, and sometimes even difficulties in accessing hospitals.”

2021 arrives over the rubble of 2020 with a light appearing at the end of the tunnel. But it is still uncertain if the exit is close.

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