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WASHINGTON: More than five million people are known to have died of coronavirus worldwide, 19 months since the pandemic began, according to Johns Hopkins University.
Together, the United States, the European Union, Britain and Brazil — all upper-middle- or high-income countries — account for one-eighth of the world’s population but nearly half of all reported deaths.
The United States alone has recorded over 740,000 lives lost, more than any other nation. It is followed by Brazil, with 607,824 recorded deaths, and India, with 458,437. However, health experts believe these numbers are underreported, partly because of deaths at home and those in rural communities.
The World Health Organization (WHO) estimates the pandemic’s real global death toll could be two to three times higher than official records. Nearly 250 million cases of the virus have been recorded worldwide.
The death toll, as tallied by Johns Hopkins University, is about equal to the populations of Los Angeles and San Francisco combined. It rivals the number of people killed in battles among nations since 1950, according to estimates from the Peace Research Institute Oslo. Globally, Covid-19 is now the third leading cause of death, after heart disease and stroke.
Hot spots have shifted over the 22 months since the outbreak began, turning different places on the world map red. Now, the virus is pummeling Russia, Ukraine and other parts of Eastern Europe, especially where rumors, misinformation and distrust in government have hobbled vaccination efforts.
India, despite its terrifying delta surge that peaked in early May, now has a much lower reported daily death rate than wealthier Russia, the U.S. or Britain, though there is uncertainty around its figures.
It has taken the world longer to reach the latest one million deaths than the previous two. It took over 110 days to go from four million deaths to five million. That is compared to just under 90 days to rise from three million to four million.
While vaccines have helped reduce the fatality rate, the WHO warned last week that the pandemic was “far from over”. Its director general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus pointed to a rise in cases in Europe, where countries with low vaccination rates are seeing soaring infections and deaths.
