Covid-19: more than 2.5 million dead worldwide

More than 2.5 million Covid-19 deaths have been officially recorded worldwide since the start of the pandemic in December 2019, according to a count carried out by AFP from official reports provided by the authorities on Thursday February 25 at 5.30 p.m. GMT.

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In total, 2,500,172 deaths have been recorded, for 112,618,488 reported cases.

Europe, with 842,894 deaths, is the most affected region, ahead of Latin America / Caribbean (667,972) and the United States / Canada (528,039).

The countries with the highest number of deaths linked to Covid-19 are the United States (506,232), Brazil (249,957), Mexico (182,815), India (156,705) and the United Kingdom (122,070) .

These five countries alone account for nearly half of the deaths in the world.

The figures compiled by AFP are based on reports published daily by the health authorities in each country.

They are, on a global scale, a partial estimate of the real number of deaths, the statistical organizations of several countries having concluded a posteriori to an even greater number of deaths attributable to Covid-19.

On September 28, just over nine months after the announcement of the first death in China in January 2020, the threshold of one million deaths worldwide was crossed.

In just four more months, another million people were swept away and on January 15, the milestone of 2 million deaths was reached.

However, since the end of January, the death curve has seen a marked decline.

The world recorded 66,800 deaths last week, or about 9,500 per day.

These numbers are well below those of the deadliest week on record.

From January 20 to 26, 101,400 deaths had been recorded, or 14,500 on average per day.

Daily figures are now back to the level of early November.

Europe, since October again become the epicenter of the pandemic, has recorded over the last seven days more than a third of the deaths counted in the world.

However, the 52 countries and territories in the region recorded 14% fewer deaths last week than the previous week, averaging 3,400 daily deaths.

The trend is also downward in most of the other continents.

The United States / Canada recorded the largest decrease with -23% compared to last week (i.e. 2,150 deaths on average per day), followed by Europe then Africa (-13%, 378) and America Latin and the Caribbean (-7%, 2,720)

According to the figures reported to the population, Belgium is the country which deplores the highest number of deaths with 1900 deaths recorded per million inhabitants, followed by the Czech Republic (1850), Slovenia (1830), the United Kingdom (1790) and Italy (1600).