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LONDON: Europe on Tuesday became the first region in the world to exceed 500,000 deaths from Covid-19, according to a Reuters tally, as a new variant of the coronavirus discovered in Britain threatened prevention measures in the region to curb the pandemic.
Reports of the mutated variant outside England triggered a pre-Christmas shutdown and forced dozens of countries to close their borders to British travelers this week.
Italy, the country with the highest death toll in Europe, detected a patient infected with the new variant on Sunday, as did Denmark and France.
To curb the spread, European countries are considering screening passengers on flights from the UK and forcing travelers into quarantine upon arrival.
Earlier this month, the UK became the first nation to approve the Pfizer Inc – BioNTech vaccine, followed by the US, the European Union and other countries.
Europe has reported around 30% of Covid-19 deaths and cases globally so far, according to a Reuters tally.
The death toll in Europe has accelerated in recent months. Since the first Covid-19 death was reported in France in February, it has taken the region eight months to reach 250,000 deaths. It took the region just 60 days to go from 250,000 to 500,000 deaths.
France, Spain, Italy, the United Kingdom and Russia have reported hundreds of deaths a day and the five countries account for almost 60% of the total deaths in the region.
Globally, there have been 77.52 million cases and 1.71 million deaths, according to a Reuters tally.
Click here for our live update of the Covid-19 situation in Malaysia.
