Coronavirus: Covid-19 now kills one person every eight seconds

The coronavirus is killing one person every eight seconds around the world.

The terrifying statistic comes from data from the World Health Organization (WHO) Coronavirus Disease (COVID-19) Control Panel.

The WHO registered 9,989 new deaths from coronavirus in the last 24 hours, which made yesterday the third deadliest day since the beginning of the pandemic.

In Europe, where cases are increasing in several countries on the continent, the outlook is also bleak, with the WHO director in Europe warning that the virus is killing one person every 17 seconds.

In the five minutes it will take you to read this article and browse some apps on your phone, 37 people will have died from COVID-19 and another person will be seconds away from being killed.

On April 17, as the coronavirus pandemic was taking hold around the world, the death rate reached its daily peak, killing 12,432 in a single day.

The second deadliest day occurred on August 15, when the virus killed 10,016 people in a single day. And Thursday marked the third deadliest day in a year since the virus appeared in the community.

Just over a year after the first case of the virus was reported in Wuhan, China, more than 55 million people have been diagnosed with COVID-19, and 1,344,003 million of those people have died.

HOW DO WE GET HERE?

COVID-19 is a life-threatening disease, but it is difficult to understand how the situation got so out of control in so many countries around the world.

WHO figures point to the highest number of deaths reported in the Americas and Europe. In the Americas, which includes the United States and Brazil, 686,129 deaths have been reported.

In Europe, some 359,195 deaths have been reported. The figures for those two regions represent 1.04 million of the 1.3 million coronavirus deaths in the world.

In Brazil and the United States, both countries have been hampered by disjointed approaches to addressing the pandemic by leaders who have continually downplayed the severity of the virus and sought to undermine lockdown orders implemented at the state level.

US President Donald Trump has publicly criticized high-level members of his own White House Coronavirus Task Force and spent many months of the pandemic refusing to wear a mask.

The president has also publicly criticized the coronavirus restrictions imposed by the governors of Democratic states, tweeting: “FREE MINNESOTA!” “FREE MICHIGAN!” “FREE VIRGINIA!” during the heated anti-lockdown protests earlier this year.

After Trump contracted the coronavirus and had to be hospitalized for his illness, he continued to downplay its severity, suggesting in a tweet that American citizens could learn to “live with Covid.”

The post was subsequently hidden from Twitter for “spreading misleading and potentially harmful information related to COVID-19.”

The death toll from COVID-19 in the US has continued to rise. Last week, the US reached two grim milestones: reporting one million new cases in seven days and reporting a quarter of a million deaths from the virus.

The death toll, which topped 250,000 on Thursday, was beyond what the White House’s worst-case scenario predictions had been for the spring, according to The Washington Post.

The dire situation is now almost certainly expected to continue to accelerate in the country, as hospitals in several states become overloaded and medical personnel report fatigue and overwhelm.

In the United States, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention urges families not to travel to celebrate Thanksgiving, as cases increase across the country.

In Brazil, there have been more than 5.9 million coronavirus cases and more than 166,000 deaths, according to the WHO, making it the third most affected country in the world, after India and the United States. Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro announced on July 7 that he had tested positive for COVID-19, after dismissing the virus as “a little flu.”

In the weeks leading up to the positive test, Bolsonaro urged companies to reopen in defiance of closure orders imposed by some governors, and failed to appoint a health minister for his own government to help address the crisis in Brazil.

EUROPE FACES SIX TOUGH MONTHS

Hans Kluge, WHO director for Europe, warned that Europe faces a “tough” six months as the continent once again becomes the epicenter of the coronavirus crisis.

Kluge said the mainland had reported 29,000 deaths in the last week alone, according to the BBC. However, he said the blockades that were being applied across the continent were proving to be effective as the number of new cases began to decline.

Kluge said Europe currently accounts for 28 percent of global cases and 26 percent of global deaths from COVID-19. He said the situation was worrying in Switzerland and France, where intensive care units had reached 95% of capacity.

“Europe is once again the epicenter of the pandemic, along with the United States,” Kluge told reporters from Copenhagen.

He said that in Europe, the figures show that “one person dies every 17 seconds.”

He referred to the development of effective vaccines, but said that before a widespread deployment, it will be a difficult period for the continent.

“There is light at the end of the tunnel, but it will be a difficult six months,” Kluge said.

In Southeast Asia, 156,439 deaths have been reported and in the eastern Mediterranean 93,548 deaths have also been reported.

Some 32,060 deaths have been reported on the African continent, and 16,619 deaths have been reported in the Western Pacific.