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At least 1.5 million lives around the world have been lost to Covid-19, according to a case count kept by Johns Hopkins University, as it appears that vaccines will be rolled out in a handful of countries this month.
Reuters reported that the figures reflected one death reported every nine seconds on average. In the last week alone, more than 10,000 people around the world have died on average every day, and this number continues to rise each week.
By JHU’s tally, nearly 65 million people have been infected worldwide, and with half a million deaths recorded in the past two months alone, the threat to life from the pandemic is far from over.
Many countries are battling the second and third waves of coronavirus infections, in some cases worse than the first, and are reinstating lockdowns and other strict restrictions in an attempt to slow the spread of the virus.
Several countries set new Covid-19 records this week. Italy recorded 993 more deaths, surpassing its previous record of 969 during its first wave. Meanwhile, Iran, the worst-hit country in the Middle East, surpassed 1 million cases even as authorities considered easing restrictions.
The North American and Latin American regions combined account for more than 50% of all reported coronavirus deaths. The United States, by far the worst affected country, has recorded more than 14 million cases of Covid-19 and the pandemic has so far claimed the lives of more than 275,000 Americans. The fatalities in Latin America have exceeded 450,000.
The coronavirus has caused more deaths in the last year than tuberculosis in 2019 and almost four times the number of deaths from malaria, according to the World Health Organization.
But the official figures are likely a serious understatement of the true number of Covid-19 victims. In the UK, for example, the official government death toll is 60,113, but it only counts known deaths among those who died within 28 days of testing positive.
This number has been consistently significantly lower than the figures from the three UK statistical agencies, which estimate that the death toll exceeded 76,000. This total comprises all deaths that mention the disease on the death certificate, plus the deaths recorded in government figures since the last count by the agencies.
The UK became the first country in the world to approve the Pfizer / BioNTech vaccine on Wednesday, paving the way for immunizations to begin next week.
