Health experts believe there are likely far more people who died from the coronavirus disease than those unreported.
The world has crossed the grim milestone of 2 million COVID-19 deaths, amid the rush by nations to roll out enough vaccines to save their populations.
The milestone was reached barely a year after the first death from the highly contagious disease was marked on January, 11, 2020 in Wuhan, China where the disease was said to have originated before it became a global pandemic.
With the roll out of vaccines, experts anticipate there will be a reduction in mortality but there have been more deaths especially in countries where the second wave of the virus is spreading unrestrained.
The recent spike in infection in Nigeria is feeding through into fatalities.
Last Friday, Nigeria announced its deadliest day of the pandemic with 23 lives lost under 24 hours, the country’s sharpest daily fatality toll.
“The reason for rise in fatalities is not far-fetched. When there are is a sharp rise in new cases, there will definitely be more deaths,& said Chikwe Ihekweazu, head of Nigeria’s infectious disease outfit, NCDC.
Barely a week after the global coronavirus infection hit 90 million, another 5 million has been added to the toll.
The global have crossed 95 million with 95,451,804 cases reported as of Sunday evening, according to the worldometer.info data.
Specifics
The global coronavirus deaths were 2,038,882 as of Monday morning, according to worldometer.info.That figure includes over 407,000 deaths recorded in the United States, which has lost more people to COVID-19 than any other country.
The U.S. has recorded more than twice the number of deaths recorded by India, the next most impacted country which has reported a little over 150, 000 deaths.
The World Health Organisation (WHO) had warned that the death toll could hit two million before an effective vaccine is widely used. Worst still, health experts say there are likely far more people that died from the disease that were unreported.
The world recorded two million deaths within the first year of the pandemic era, rising sharply from the 3,000 total in early March, 2020.
The death tally reached 20,000 in late March and passed half a million on June 28. About 20 days later, 100,000 more deaths were recorded and on September 27, the toll reached a million threshold. On December 5, the tally surpassed 1.5 million.
It took the world just about 20 days to go from 1.5 million deaths on December 5, 2020, to 2 million on January 15, 2021.
Today, 2.5 out of every 10,000 people have died from the disease, according to Devex.
Since the beginning of 2021, the U.S. has averaged just under 3,000 new COVID-19 related deaths daily.
After angry rioters and supporters of outgoing President Donald Trump stormed the U.S. Capitol on January 6, the United States tallied its deadliest day of the coronavirus pandemic with more than 4,000 lives lost from COVID-19 under one day, the first time the toll exceeded that milestone.
