The global death toll from Covid-19 topped 5 million on Monday, less than two years into a crisis that has not only devastated poor countries but also humbled wealthy ones with first-rate health care systems.
The U.S. alone has recorded over 740,000 lives lost, more than any other nation.Together, the United States, the European Union, Britain and Brazil all upper middle or high income countries account for one-eighth of the world’s population but nearly half of all reported deaths.
The death toll, as tallied by Johns Hopkins University, is about equal to the populations of Los Angeles and San Francisco combined. It rivals the number of people killed in battles among nations since 1950, according to estimates from the Peace Research Institute Oslo.
Hot spots have shifted over the 22 months since the outbreak began, turning different places on the world map red. In Ukraine, only 17% of the adult population is fully vaccinated; in Armenia, only 7%.
In the US, for example, Covid-19 has taken an outsize toll on Black and Hispanic people, who are more likely than white people to live in poverty and have less access to health care.Ko said ,“When we get out our microscopes, we see that within countries, the most vulnerable have suffered most,”.
Wealth has also played a role in the global vaccination drive, with rich countries accused of locking up supplies. The U.S. and others are already dispensing booster shots at a time when millions across Africa haven’t received a single dose, though the rich countries are also shipping hundreds of millions of shots to the rest of the world.
In Rio de Janeiro, Erika Machado scanned the list of names engraved on a long, undulating sculpture of oxidized steel that stands in Penitencia cemetery as an homage to some of Brazil’s Covid-19 victims. Then she found him: Wagner Machado, her father.
In Bergamo, Italy, once the site of the West’s first deadly wave, 51-year-old Fabrizio Fidanza was deprived of a final farewell as his 86-year-old father lay dying in the hospital. He is still trying to come to terms with the loss more than a year later.
