A street in São Paulo, Brazil
The 2021 death toll from the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2, known as SARS-CoV2 or Covid-19) has already eclipsed that of 2020
Starting with the first deaths from Covid in January of last year, 1,880,580 people have died in 2020, according to data from Johns Hopkins University. As of Thursday, 1,883,325 individuals have died this year, placing this year’s death toll ahead of last year’s.
The total death toll stands at 3,763,905.
The sheer speed at which the 2020 death toll has been eclipsed in 2021 stands in stark contrast to the headlines in the United States, the United Kingdom, and the European Union, where the death toll has fallen dramatically, as have the incidence rate of new cases and the number of hospitalizations.
Meanwhile, the number of deaths in countries such as India, Brazil, and Argentina serves as a grim reminder that the pandemic is far from over.
On Wednesday, Bihar, one of India’s poorest states, revised its total Covid-19 death toll to more than 9,429 from about 5,424, lending weight to the suspicion that the country’s death count is significantly higher than the official figure.
India, on Thursday, reported the highest single-day death count from Covid-19 in the world, with 6,148 deaths.
Peru, the country with the highest death rate per million members of the population, recently updated its figures and now reports more than 94,000 deaths in 2021, 1,000 more than the total deaths in 2020.
Brazil, already feeling from one of the world’s highest death tolls from Covid, is now bracing for what is believed will be a powerful third wave fueled by a lack of containment measures, lockdown restrictions, and delays in getting the citizenry inoculated. Already, 60% of the country’s death toll was in 2021.
The United States celebrated a milestone in vaccinations on Wednesday as it crossed the 50% mark for fully vaccinated Americans. The United Kingdom has given over 73% of the population a first dose of the vaccine and half of that population has already had a second dose.
Almost 22% of the population is fully vaccinated in Austria and that figure is 24% in Germany.
This stands in stark contrast with a vaccination rate of 22% in South America, 6% in Asia, and 2% in Africa. All told, only 5.9% of the world’s population is fully vaccinated, a figure far from sufficient to end the pandemic.
(Photo: Accura Media Group)
