The coronavirus pandemic has ravaged families from all over the world with figures showing that an upsurge in orphaned children has come about as a result among other consequences. But how many people have truly died since the pandemic began almost two years ago now?
Discover our latest podcast
How many deaths in total?
The exact figure will perhaps never be known as there will always be a discrepancy in unreported deaths coming from those who were unable to receive medical attention. This is especially true for countries of a lower social economic status. However, stats provided by Johns Hopkins University has tallied the global death toll to have surpassed the five million mark on Monday 1 November. That's about as many people living in the whole of Los Angeles or San Francisco—some of the world's most dense cities.
Interestingly enough, the majority of these deaths come from wealthier countries. The US alone has recorded 740,000 lives lost. Together with all of the European Union, Britain and Brazil—considered to be upper-middle to high-income countries—nearly half of all those deceased come from one of these nations.
According to data collected by the Peace Research Institute Oslo, COVID-19 is now the third leading cause of death after heart disease and stroke in the world. Dr.Wafaa El-Sadr, director of ICAP—a global health centre at Columbia University, explained that:
What’s uniquely different about this pandemic is it hit hardest the high-resource countries. That’s the irony of Covid.
Why richer countries have more deaths
According to the expert, the reason richer countries have a higher death toll is due to having larger proportions of elderly people, cancer survivors and nursing home residents. All of these groups of people have one thing in common: they are all much more vulnerable to the virus.
Poorer countries, on the other hand, tend to have greater amounts of children, teenagers and younger adults who, as we now know, are less likely to succumb to COVID.
