Global COVID-19 deaths hit 5 million as Delta variant sweeps the world

New Delhi, Oct 3 (BUS): The number of deaths worldwide linked to COVID-19 exceeded 5 million on Friday with the non-vaccinated people particularly exposed to the virulent delta strain.

The alternative revealed the large disparities in vaccination rates between rich and poor countries, and the results of vaccine hesitation in some Western countries.

More than half of all global deaths reported on average for a seven-day period were in the United States, Russia, Brazil, Mexico and India.

While it took just over a year for the COVID-19 death toll to reach 2.5 million, 2.5 million deaths were recorded in less than eight months, according to a Reuters analysis.

An average of 8,000 deaths per day have been reported worldwide over the past week, or about five deaths every minute. However, the global death rate has slowed in recent weeks.

There has been a growing focus in recent days on getting vaccines to poor countries, as many people have yet to receive their first dose, even as their richer counterparts have started giving boosters.

More than half of the world’s population has yet to receive at least one dose of the COVID-19 vaccine, according to Our World in Data.

The World Health Organization (WHO) said this week that its COVAX distribution program will, for the first time, distribute the shots only to countries with lower levels of coverage.

Under the leadership of the World Health Organization, COVAX since January has been proportionately allocating doses among the more than 140 recipient countries according to population size.

“For the October supply, we designed a different methodology, covering only participants with low sources of supply,” said Mariangela Simao, WHO’s assistant director-general for access to vaccines, recording a presentation at the conference last week posted on the WHO’s website.

The United States, which is battling misinformation about vaccines that has caused about a third of the population to avoid vaccinations, passed 700,000 deaths on Friday, the highest toll of any country.

Cases and hospitalizations in the United States are trending down, but health officials are bracing for a possible resurgence as cold 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 on the fourth consecutive day it set this record. Only 33% of the eligible population of Russia received the first vaccine dose.

As a region, South America has the highest number of deaths in the world accounting for 21% of all reported deaths, followed by North America and Eastern Europe which contribute more than 14% of all deaths, according to a Reuters analysis.

However, India, one of the first countries to be devastated by the delta variant, went from averaging 4,000 deaths per day to less than 300 as its vaccination campaign began.

A Reuters analysis of our data scientist showed that about 47% of the eligible population in India received the first shot, with officials administering about 7,896,950 doses per day over the past week.

The delta variant is now the dominant strain worldwide and has been reported in 187 out of 194 WHO member countries.

HF