‘Pandemic far from over’, even as global toll crosses five million
The Hindu
Even with large-scale vaccination in many countries, the death rate is witnessing a sudden rise now in Europe and Southeast Asia
Nearly 22 months after the first COVID-19 death of a 61-year-old man in Wuhan, China on January 9, 2020, the total number of reported deaths globally has crossed five million on November 1. Each week, more than 50,000 people are continuing to die due to COVID-19. At 0.75 million, the U.S. has reported the greatest number of deaths in the world, followed by Brazil (0.6 million), India (0.45 million), Mexico (0.28 million) and Russia (0.23 million).
The speed at which the virus killed people has decreased a bit since summer this year — it took nearly four months to add another million deaths after the toll crossed four million on July 7. This was despite the Delta variant still being the dominant strain globally. The reason: vaccines were effective in preventing deaths in many countries where a large number of people have been immunised.