The official death toll worldwide by COVID-19 eclipsed 6 million on Monday, stressing the pandemicwhich is now entering its third year, is far from over.
The milestone, recorded by Johns Hopkins University, is the latest tragic reminder of the relentless nature of the pandemic, even as people escape masks, travel resumes, and businesses reopen around the world.
The remote Pacific islands, the isolation of which had protected them for more than two years, are now battling their first outbreaks and deaths, fueled by the highly contagious variant of Omicron.
Hong Kong, which is seeing deaths rising, is testing its entire population of 7.5 million three times this month as it clings to mainland China’s “zero-COVID” strategy.
TYRONE SIU / REUTERS
As mortality rates remain high in Poland, Hungary, Romania and other Eastern European countries, the region has seen more than 1.5 million refugees arrive. Ukraine devastated by wara country with poor vaccination coverage and high death and death rates.
And despite its wealth and availability of vaccines, the United States is approaching 1 million deaths on its own.
Worldwide mortality rates remain highest among unvaccinated people, said Tikki Pang, a visiting professor at Singapore National University School of Medicine and co-chair of the Asia Immunization Coalition. Pacific.
“This is a disease of the unvaccinated; look at what’s happening in Hong Kong right now; the health care system is overflowing,” said Pang, a former director of research policy and cooperation with the World Health Organization. . “The vast majority of deaths and serious cases are in the vulnerable and unvaccinated segment of the population.”
It took the world seven months to register its first million deaths from the virus after the pandemic began in early 2020. Four months later, another million people had died, and 1 million every three months since then. until the death toll reached 5 million at the end of October. It has now reached 6 million, more than the populations of Berlin and Brussels combined, or the entire state of Maryland.
The toll is almost certainly much higher
But despite the enormity of the figure, the world no doubt reached its death number 6 million some time ago. Poor record keeping and testing in many parts of the world has resulted in an insufficient count of coronavirus deaths, as well as an excess of pandemic-related deaths, but not of actual COVID-19 infections, such as people who died for avoidable causes but could not receive. treatment because the hospitals were full.
Edouard Mathieu, head of data at Our World in Data, said that when countries’ excess mortality figures are studied, almost four times the number of reported deaths is likely to have been caused by the pandemic.
An analysis of the excess deaths by a team of The Economist estimates that the number of deaths from COVID-19 is between 14.1 million and 23.8 million.
“Confirmed deaths represent a fraction of the actual number of deaths due to COVID, mainly due to limited evidence and challenges in attributing the cause of death,” Mathieu told The Associated Press. “In some countries, mostly rich, this fraction is high and the official count can be considered quite accurate, but in others it is greatly underestimated.”
Geographical disparities are still acute
The United States has the highest official death toll in the world, but the numbers have been declining over the past month.
The world has seen more than 445 million confirmed cases of COVID-19 and new weekly cases have been declining recently in all regions except the Western Pacific, which includes China, Japan and South Korea, among others. reported the World Health Organization this week.
While overall figures in the Pacific Islands who saw their first outbreaks are small compared to larger countries, they are important among their small populations and threaten to overwhelm fragile health systems.
“Given what we know about COVID … it’s likely to affect them over the next year, at least,” said Katie Greenwood, head of the Pacific Red Cross delegation.
Tonga reported its first outbreak after the virus arrived with international aid ships following the January 15 eruption of a massive volcano that was followed by a tsunami. It now has several hundred cases, but – with 66% of its population fully vaccinated – so far it has been reported that most people suffer from mild symptoms and no deaths.
The Solomon Islands saw its first outbreak in January and now has thousands of cases and more than 100 deaths. The actual death toll is likely to be much higher, with the capital’s hospital overflowing and many dying at home, Greenwood said.
Only 12% of Solomon Islands residents are fully vaccinated, although the outbreak has given a new impetus to the country’s vaccination campaign and 29% now have at least one vaccine.
The global vaccine disparity continues, with only 6.95% of people in low-income countries fully vaccinated compared to more than 73% of high-income countries, according to Our World in Data.
By the way, at the end of last month Africa surpassed Europe in the number of doses administered daily, but only 12.5% of its population has received two injections.
The African Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is still pushing for more vaccines, although it has been a challenge. Some shipments arrive with little notice to the health systems of the countries and others close to the expiration date, forcing the doses to be destroyed.
Eastern Europe has been particularly affected by the omicron variant, and with the Russian invasion of Ukraine, a new risk has arisen, as hundreds of thousands of people flee to places like Poland on crowded trains. Health officials have offered free vaccines to all refugees, but have not tested them on arrival or in quarantine.
“This is really tragic because high stress has a very negative effect on natural immunity and increases the risk of infections,” said Anna Boron-Kaczmarska, a Polish infectious disease specialist. “They are very stressed, they are afraid for their lives, the lives of their children, the members of their family.”
Prudent optimism in the US
He Biden administration plans to begin storing millions of tests at home and pills for COVID treatment, as part of a new 96-page plan that outlines the future of federal efforts to deal with the pandemic.
“We have reached a new milestone in the fight against VOCID-19. Because of the great progress we have made as a country, the determination and resilience of the American people, and the work we have done to create tools to protect we are widely available, we are moving forward safely, returning to our most normal routines, “White House COVID-19 Response Coordinator Jeff Zients told reporters last week.
The plan, first outlined by President Biden during his Address of the State of the Union, aims to strike a balance between efforts to alleviate the restrictions imposed on curbing the virus while increasing efforts to address the danger that future variants could pose. Zients has been talking about the White House’s work on the new playbook for the past few weeks; he told reporters that the administration was consulting with a wide range of public health experts, local governments and agencies to finalize the plan.
– Alex Tin contributed to this report
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