Coronavirus: Chile overtakes Israel as fastest country to vaccinate
- Chile vaccinating its population at a rate that beats other countries
- Thursday marks first anniversary of WHO’s declaration of pandemic
Chile has overtaken Israel as the country with the most people vaccinated against the coronavirus per 100 residents within the past seven days.
“Today we have a new reason to be proud: Chile has taken first place in the global ranking of doses administered per 100 inhabitants,” the South American country's government wrote on Twitter on Tuesday, after data from the Our World in Data statistics portal was released.
According to the data, Chile administered an average of 1.08 doses per day per 100 inhabitants over the past seven days; Israel is 1.03.
The announcement came as much of the world still struggles to break the grip of Covid-19. Thursday marks one year since the World Health Organization declared a pandemic.
On March 11, 2020, confirmed cases of Covid-19 stood at 125,000, and reported deaths stood at fewer than 5,000. Today, 117 million people are confirmed to have been infected, and according to Johns Hopkins, more than 2.6 million people have died.
More than 700,000 people have now lost their lives in Latin America and the Caribbean, with Brazil and Mexico accounting for the lion’s share of deaths.