Worldwide coronavirus deaths top 2.5 million

Name: One-shot coronavirus vaccine by Johnson & Johnson is safe and effective, US FDA finds
Uploaded: 2021-02-25T18:52:41.000Z
Duration: 1 min 46 s
Description: One-shot coronavirus vaccine by Johnson & Johnson is safe and effective, US FDA finds

Almost half of the fatalities have occurred in just five countries: the US, Brazil, Mexico, India and Britain

AstraZeneca’s boss confident of making up huge shortfall in vaccine promised to EU; Britain lowers alert level citing falling cases

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A worker wearing a protective suit and carrying an umbrella walks past the graves of Covid-19 victims at the Nossa Senhora Aparecida cemetery in Manaus, Brazil on Thursday. Photo: AFP

Agence France-Presse

Published: 2:52am, 26 Feb 2021Updated: 5:30am, 26 Feb 2021

Covid-19 has killed more than 2.5 million people worldwide since the pandemic began in December 2019, according to a count by Johns Hopkins University on Thursday. More than 112 million cases have been reported in total.

With over 800,000 deaths, Europe is the hardest-hit region, followed by Latin America and the Caribbean, and the US and Canada.

Almost half of the fatalities have occurred in just five countries: the US (over 506,000), Brazil (251,498), Mexico (182,815), India (156,705) and Britain (122,303).

The world passed 1 million reported coronavirus deaths on September 28, a little over nine months after the first death was recorded in China in January 2020. It took just four more months, until January 15, to reach 2 million deaths.

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One-shot coronavirus vaccine by Johnson & Johnson is safe and effective, US FDA finds

But the pace of deaths has slowed since late January this year, with 66,800 last week or an average of 9,500 per day – well below the deadliest week of January 20 to 26, when 101,400 deaths or 14,500 per day were registered.