The global death toll from the coronavirus has topped a staggering three million, with cases more than 140 million, amid repeated setbacks in the vaccination campaign and a deepening crisis in places such as Brazil, India and France.
The number of lives lost as of Saturday, as compiled by Johns Hopkins University, is about equal to the population of Kyiv (Ukraine), Caracas (Venezuela) or Lisbon (Portugal). It is higher than Chicago’s population of 2.7 million and equivalent to Philadelphia and Dallas combined.
And the true number is believed to be significantly higher because of possible government concealment and the many cases overlooked in the early stages of the outbreak that was first reported in Wuhan, China, towards the end of 2019.
When, in January this year, the world passed the bleak threshold of two million deaths, immunisation drives had just started in Europe and the United States.
Today, vaccination is under way in more than 190 countries, though progress in bringing the virus under control varies widely.
While the campaigns in the US and the United Kingdom have hit their stride and people and businesses there are beginning to contemplate life after the pandemic, other places, mostly poorer countries but some rich ones as well, are lagging behind in putting shots in arms and have imposed new lockdowns and other restrictions as virus cases soar.
“This is not the situation we want to be in 16 months into a pandemic, where we have proven control measures,” said Maria Van Kerkhove, one of the World Health Organization’s COVID-19 experts.
In Brazil, where deaths are running at approximately 3,000 per day, accounting for one-quarter of the lives lost worldwide in recent weeks, the crisis has been likened to a “raging inferno” by one WHO official.
