Global COVID-19 deaths hit 5 million as Delta variant sweeps the world
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[October 02, 2021]
By Kavya B and Roshan Abraham
(Reuters) -Worldwide deaths related to
COVID-19 surpassed 5 million on Friday, according to a Reuters tally,
with unvaccinated people particularly exposed to the virulent Delta
strain.
The variant has exposed the wide disparities in vaccination rates
between rich and poor nations, and the upshot of vaccine hesitancy in
some western nations.
More than half of all global deaths reported on a seven-day average were
in the United States, Russia, Brazil, Mexico and India.
While it took just over a year for the COVID-19 death toll https://tmsnrt.rs/34pvUyi
to hit 2.5 million, the next 2.5 million deaths were recorded in just
under eight months, according to a Reuters analysis.
An average of 8,000 deaths were reported daily across the world over the
last week, or around five deaths every minute. However, the global death
rate has been slowing in recent weeks.
There has been increasing focus in recent days on getting vaccines to
poorer nations, where many people are yet to receive a first dose, even
as their richer counterparts have begun giving booster shots.
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More than half of the world has yet to receive at least one dose of a
COVID-19 vaccine, according to Our World in Data https://ourworldindata.org/covid-vaccinations.
The World Health Organization this week said its COVAX distribution
programme would, for the first time, distribute shots only to countries
with the lowest levels of coverage.
Co-led by the WHO, COVAX has since January largely allocated doses
proportionally among its 140-plus beneficiary states according to
population size.
"For the October supply we designed a different methodology, only
covering participants with low sources of supply," Mariangela Simao, WHO
Assistant Director General for Access to Vaccines, said in a recording
of a conference presentation last week posted on the WHO's website.
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People cremate the bodies of victims of the coronavirus disease
(COVID-19), at a crematorium ground in New Delhi, India, April 24,
2021. REUTERS/Danish Siddiqui/File Photo
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The United States, which has been battling vaccine
misinformation that has caused about one-third of the population to
avoid inoculations, surpassed 700,000 deaths on Friday, the highest
toll of any country.
U.S. cases and hospitalizations have been trending lower, but health
officials are bracing for a possible resurgence as cooler weather
forces more activities indoors.
Russia reported 887 coronavirus-related deaths on Friday, the
largest single-day death toll it has recorded since the pandemic
began and the fourth day in a row it has set that record. Only 33%
of Russia's eligible population has received a first vaccine dose.
As a region, South America has the highest death toll in the world
accounting for 21% of all reported deaths, followed by North America
and Eastern Europe contributing more than 14% of all fatalities
each, according to Reuters analysis.
However, India, one of the first countries ravaged by the Delta
variant, has gone from an average of 4,000 deaths a day to less than
300 as its vaccination campaign is rolled out.
About 47% of India's eligible population has received a first shot,
with officials administering around 7,896,950 doses per day over the
past week, a Reuters analysis of Our World in Data showed.
The Delta variant is now the dominant strain around the globe and
has been reported in 187 out of 194 World Health Organization member
countries.
(Reporting by Kavya B and Roshan Abraham in Bengaluru; Editing by
Lisa Shumaker and Jane Wardell)
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