Global Covid death toll surpasses 4m amid struggles over variants and vaccine access

It is thought that the official figure is likely to be an underestimate

South America has been particulalry badly affected (AFP via Getty Images)

The world’s known death toll from Covid-19 passed a total of four million on Thursday, according to the Centre for Systems Science and Engineering at Johns Hopkins University.

The pace of lives lost to coronavirus appears to be quickening. One million lives were claimed in the first nine months of the pandemic, the following three and a half months saw a second million people die from Covid-19 and in the next three months another one million deaths were reported.

Meanwhile, the jump from three million to four million deaths happened in the space of two and a half months.

The number of daily reported deaths has, however, recently begun to decline.

The four million is the officially reported figure although this number is widely thought to be an underestimate of Covid-related deaths. 

Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the director-general of the World Health Organisation, said on Wednesday that the four million marked a tragic milestone.

He pointed out that the fact the toll was continuing to rise was primarily due to dangerous versions of the virus as well as inequities in the way vaccines have been distributed.

“Compounded by fast-moving variants and shocking inequity in vaccination, far too many countries in every region of the world are seeing sharp spikes in cases and hospitalisations,” said Dr Tedros at a news conference.

Jennifer Nuzzo, who works as an epidemiologist at Johns Hopkins University’s Bloomberg School of Public Health said:“The numbers may not tell the complete story, and yet they’re still really staggering numbers globally,” reported The New York Times.

Ms Nuzzo explained that the number of excess deaths reported around the world could indicate that “lower-income countries have been much harder hit than their official numbers would suggest.”

The overall number of lives lost due to Covid the past year and a half is around equivalent to the population of Los Angeles or the country of Georgia.

According to estimates from the Peace Research Institute Oslo, the total number of deaths so far is around the same as the number of people who have been killed in fighting in all of the world’s wars since 1982.

The countries with the five highest official death tolls from Covid-19 are the United States, Brazil, India, Mexico and Peru.