The toll is heavy: at least 3 million deaths from Covid-19 have been recorded worldwide, since its discovery in China in December 2019, according to a count carried out by Agence France-Presse (AFP), from reports provided by the health authorities of each country, Saturday, April 17, early in the morning. These counts are probably underestimated but provide an order of magnitude for measuring the global health situation and the evolution of the pandemic.
After a slight lull in March, the number of daily deaths is on the rise again around the world, with an average of more than 12,000 deaths per day last week, approaching the 14,500 daily deaths recorded at the end of January, at the highest of the pandemic. This is at “A critical point”, estimated Monday the World Health Organization (WHO), and the situation is very heterogeneous, between countries like Israel which manage to contain it thanks to an intense campaign of vaccination and others such as India which suffer a meteoric rise in contaminations and deaths.
Vaccination reduces mortality
The United Kingdom, the country in Europe most bereaved by the Covid-19 (with more than 127,000 deaths recorded), now only deplores around thirty deaths each day, after a peak at more than 1,200 daily deaths at the end of January. The country, which emerged from more than three months of confinement on Monday with the reopening of its terraces and sports halls, launched a massive vaccination campaign in early December which made it possible to administer at least one dose to 60% of its adult population.
Likewise, the United States, the most affected country in the world with more than 566,000 deaths, has seen the epidemic decline sharply since the end of January, even if the figures are on the rise again in some States. The benefits of vaccination can also be seen in Israel, where six in ten people have received at least one dose of the vaccine. The country deplores only six to seven deaths per day, almost ten times less than at the end of January, at the height of the pandemic.
A new epidemic outbreak in Brazil and India
Conversely, several countries are struggling to contain a new epidemic outbreak. WHO technical manager Maria Van Kerkhove warned of a pandemic on Tuesday ” expanding “, who “Grows exponentially”. In Brazil in particular, some 3,000 deaths are announced every day, or nearly a quarter of the deaths announced daily in the world. This figure has more than doubled since mid-February and the country is since March 7 the one which deplores every day the most victims in the world.
The rise in deaths is also extremely rapid in India, which has been forced to cancel the Festival of Colors celebrations. More than 1,000 daily deaths are recorded in this country of 1.3 billion inhabitants, or nine times more than at the beginning of March, an increase similar to that of contaminations (more than 188,000 per day against 15,000 at the beginning of March).