According to the latest data from Johns Hopkins University, the death toll exceeded 3 million worldwide on Saturday. This means that more people died from the coronavirus than live in Lisbon, Portugal or Chicago, Illinois.
More than a third of the deaths occurred in just three provinces: the US, Brazil and India.
The US represents by far the majority of deaths in the world’s coronavirus, mainly due to a devastating winter storm. More than 566,000 people in the US have died from the coronavirus so far – almost 20% of the world total.
Brazil reported nearly 370,000 total coronavirus deaths, while India reported about 175,000.
“This is not the situation in which we want a pandemic within 16 months where we have control measures,” Maria Van Kerkhove, the technical guide of the World Health Organization for COVID-19, said earlier this week. “Now is the time for everyone to take stock and do a reality check on what we need to do.”
The world reached a similar sobering milestone in January, when coronavirus deaths were 2 million higher. Coronavirus deaths rose 1 million in September.
But the landscape of the pandemic is now different: countries are getting shots in the arms as quickly as possible, as they are fighting more contagious variants that in some cases can evade protection against vaccines.
The available vaccine supply is still scarce in many parts of the world: COVAX, the UN-sponsored program to ensure even distribution of coronavirus vaccines, has delivered just enough doses for about 0.25% of the world’s population. In low-income countries, only 1 in more than 500 people got their shots, compared to 1 in 4 people in high-income countries, according to the WHO.
Particularly in India and Brazil, the slow vaccination of vaccines, a lack of social distance and the proliferation of variant hospitals have again pushed into a crisis mode.
Large gatherings abound in India as deaths increase
India has vaccinated less than 8% of its population since its national vaccination program began exactly three months ago. During that time, the average daily mortality of new coronavirus increased more than fourfold, from about 180 per day to more than 1000 per day. Local media reported long queues at hospitals, shortages of ventilators and bodies accumulating at crematoria.
“In the past, 15 to 20 bodies were found within a day and now there are about 80 to 100 bodies daily,” Kamlesh Sailor, president of a trust operating a crematorium in Surat, told Bloomberg earlier this week.
At the same time, locals gathered for major events that could fuel the spread of the virus, including election rallies, festivals, and religious pilgrimages. At least 50 million Hindus gathered along the Ganga River earlier this week for a religious festival now linked to at least 2,000 cases of coronavirus.
Like many countries, India is also dealing with its own local variants: scientists from the Indian state of Maharashtra identified a new strain in March associated with between 15% and 20% of cases there.
On February 5, 2021, a health worker gives the AstraZeneca vaccine to a member of the Gurugram Police Department in Gurugram, India.
Vipin Kumar / Hindustan Times / Getty Images
A ‘furious inferno of an outbreak’ in Brazil
Brazil’s average daily coronavirus deaths have also doubled in the past three months, from around 950 per day to more than 2800 per day. Overwhelming hospitals now have little oxygen and sedatives.
“What you are doing here is a furious inferno of an outbreak,” Bruce Aylward, senior adviser to WTO director-general, told a news conference on April 9.
In December, Brazil becomes a hotspot for P.1, a more contagious variant that appears to evade immunity to vaccines or previous infectious portions.
A March study suggested that P.1 was 40% to 120% more transmissible than earlier versions of the virus. Researchers at Brazil’s leading public health body, Fiocruz, warned last Wednesday that the variant mutated in ‘particularly worrying’ ways to make it resistant to vaccines.
Meanwhile, only 12% of the population in Brazil has been vaccinated.
The remains of a woman who died due to complications related to COVID-19 will be placed in a niche by a cemetery worker and family members in the Inahuma Cemetery in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, on April 13, 2021.
AP Photo / Silvia Izquierdo
Brazil turned down an offer to buy 70 million doses of Pfizer’s vaccine in August, but instead turned on AstraZeneca’s lap to get vaccinated. With doses from the country’s two largest laboratories now in short supply, Brazil is relying on backup doses of China’s Sinovac shot.
“The big problem is that Brazil did not look for alternatives if it had the chance,” Claudio Maierovitch, former head of Brazil’s health regulator, told the Associated Press. “When several countries entered into their commitments and signed contracts with different suppliers, the Brazilian government did not even have vaccination on its agenda.”
The language of Brazil’s president Jair Bolsonaro has also sparked skepticism about vaccines. Bolsonaro joked earlier that the Pfizer shot could make you a crocodile. ‘
In the course of the pandemic, Bolsonaro also questioned the effectiveness of masks, repelled calls for closure and suggested that the virus is not just a ‘little flu’.