This Monday, the official number of fatalities due to COVID-19 exceeded 6 million, which shows that the pandemic, which is entering its third year, it is far from over.
The milestone, recorded by Johns Hopkins University, is the latest tragic reminder of the unforgiving nature of the pandemicEven as people shed their masks, travel is resuming and businesses are reopening around the world.
The remote islands of the Pacific, whose isolation had protected them for more than two years, now dealing with their first outbreaks and deaths, fueled by the highly contagious omicron variant.
Hong Kong, who sees how the deaths skyrocket, is subjecting its entire population of 7.5 million people to very tests this month, while clinging to mainland China’s “zero contagion” strategy.
The war and the pandemic
While death rates remain high in Poland, Hungary, Romania and other eastern european countriesthe region sees more than 1.5 million refugees arriving from war-torn Ukraine, a country with low vaccination coverage and high rates of cases and deaths.
Ukrainian refugees flee to Poland. Photo: AFP
And despite its wealth and availability of vaccines, The United States is approaching one million deaths registered by itself.
Death rates worldwide remain the highest among people not vaccinated against the virus, said Tikki Pang, a visiting professor at the National University of Singapore’s medical school and co-chair of the Asia-Pacific Immunization Coalition. Peaceful.
“This is a disease of the unvaccinated — look at what’s happening in Hong Kong right now, the health system is overwhelmed,” said Pang, a former director of research policy and cooperation at the World Health Organization. “The vast majority of deaths and serious cases occur in the vulnerable segment of the unvaccinated population“.
One million dead every three months
The world it took seven months in registering its first million deaths from the virus after the start of the pandemic in early 2020. Four months later another million people had died, and since then it has died one million every three monthsuntil the death toll reached 5 million in late October.
It has now reached 6 million, more than the populations of Berlin and Brussels combined, or the entire state of Maryland.
Boys go to school in New York on the first day of the end of the use of chinstraps. Photo: Reuters
But despite the enormity of the figure, there is no doubt that the world reached its 6 millionth death. long time.
Deficiencies in record keeping and testing in many parts of the world have led to an undercount of coronavirus deaths, in addition to an excess of pandemic-related deaths but not actual COVID-19 infections, such as those people who died from preventable causes but that they could not receive treatment because the hospitals were full.
Edouard Mathieu, portal data manager Our World in Datasaid that – when countries’ excess mortality figures are studied – it is likely that they have died from the pandemic up to almost four times more than the number of deaths reported.
23 million dead
An analysis of excess deaths by a team at The Economist estimates the number of deaths from COVID-19 to be between 14.1 and 23.8 million.
“Confirmed deaths represent a fraction of the true number of deaths due to COVID, mainly due to limited testing and difficulties in attributing cause of death,” Mathieu told The Associated Press. “In some, mostly wealthy, countries that fraction is high and the official count can be considered fairly accurate, but in others it is grossly underestimated.”
The United States is the country with the highest number of fatalities in the world, but the figures trended down in the last month.
Lonnie Bailey lost his 17-year-old nephew, Carlos Nunez Jr., who contracted COVID-19 last April, the same month Kentucky opened its age group to vaccination.
The Louisville resident said the family is still suffering, including Carlos’ younger brother, who had to be hospitalized and still has lingering symptoms. The aggressive reopening of the country has been a very hard experience for them.
“It’s hard for us to let our guard down; it’s going to take a while for us to adjust,” Bailey said.
in the world have been confirmed more than 445 million cases of COVID-19, and weekly new cases recently declined in all regionsexcept in the western Pacific, which includes China, Japan and South Korea, among others, the World Health Organization reported this week.
Although the global numbers in Pacific islands seeing their first outbreaks are small compared to larger countries, are significant among their tiny populations and threaten to overwhelm fragile health care systems.
“Given what we know about COVID … it’s likely to affect them for the next year at the earliest,” said Katie Greenwood, head of the Red Cross Pacific delegation.
Tonga reported its first outbreak after the virus will arrive with international aid ships following the eruption of a huge volcano on January 15, followed by a tsunami. It now has several hundred cases, but – with 66% of its population fully vaccinated – it has so far reported people suffering from mild symptoms and no deaths.
The Solomon Islands suffered the first outbreak in January and now have thousands of cases and more than 100 deaths. The true death toll is likely to be much higher as the capital’s hospital is overwhelmed and many are dying at home, according to Greenwood.
Only 12% of Solomon Islanders are fully vaccinated, although the outbreak has given a new impetus to the country’s vaccination campaign and 29% already have at least one vaccine.
The global vaccine disparity continues, as only 6.95% of people in low-income countries are fully vaccinated, compared to more than 73% in high-income nations, according to Our World in Data.
As a good sign, at the end of last month Africa surpassed Europe in the number of doses administered dailybut only 12.5% of its population have received two vaccines.
The Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention continue to push for more vaccines, though it has been a challenge. Some shipments arrive without notifying the health systems of the countries and others are nearing the expiration datewhich forces to destroy the doses.
The Ukrainian exodus
Eastern Europe has been particularly hard hit by the omicron variant, and with the Russian invasion of Ukraine a new risk has emerged as hundreds of thousands of people have fled to places like Poland. on crowded trains. The health authorities of that country have offered free vaccinations to all the refugees, but they have not been tested upon arrival or quarantined.
With the Russian invasion of Ukraine a new risk arose with the flight of hundreds of thousands of people. Photo: AFP
“This is really tragic because great stress it 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 under very high stress, fearing for their lives, those of their children and those of their families.”
Mexico has reported 300,000 deaths, but with few tests, a government analysis of death certificates puts the true figure closer to 500,000. Still, four weeks of declining infection rates have left health officials optimistic.
In India, where the world was shocked by images of pyres of bodies being burned in the open as crematoriums were overwhelmed, the scars are fading as the number of new cases and deaths has dwindled.
Funeral pyre in India, in 2021. Photo: EFE
India records more than 500,000 deaths, but experts believe the true number of victims it’s millionsmainly of the delta variant.
Migrants from India’s vast hinterland are now returning to its megacities in search of work, and the streets are packed with traffic. Shopping malls have customers, although still wearing masks, while schools and universities welcome students after a months-long hiatus.
In Britain, infections have declined since the omicron-driven spike in December, but remain high. England has lifted all restrictionsincluding the obligation to wear a mask and the requirement that all those who test positive isolate themselves at home.
With close to 250,000 recorded deaths, the lower death toll on the African continent is believed to be due to underreporting, as well as a generally younger and less mobile population.
“For me, Africa is a big question markbecause so far it’s been relatively spared the worst, but it could be a ticking time bomb,” Pang said, pointing to their low vaccination rates.
In South Africa, Soweto resident Thoko Dube said he received news of the deaths of two members of his family on the same day in January 2021, a month before the country received its first vaccinations.
It’s been tough, but “the family is coping,” he said. “We have accepted it because he has happened to other families.”
Por David Rising, Associated Press
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