Worldwide coronavirus deaths top 2.5 million
- 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

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.
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.