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Grave in the city of Brasilia
Photo: Myke Sena / dpa
According to statistics kept by Johns Hopkins, one million people who were infected with the coronavirus have now died worldwide.
The USA has more than 204,000 deaths and more than 141,000 people died in Brazil.
In Germany, 9,460 people have died in connection with the coronavirus since the beginning of the pandemic, the Robert Koch Institute reported on Monday.
One million deaths - a massive number that is blurred either way.
On the one hand, it is not always clear whether Covid-19 was the cause of death, especially in the case of seriously ill health.
The RKI therefore speaks of "deaths in connection
with
Covid-19 diseases", i.e. of people with a proven infection with Sars-CoV-2.
However, a recent study showed: In more than three quarters of all autopsies, Covid-19 was a major or the only disease leading to death.
At the same time, not all deaths related to the Covid-19 disease have been and will certainly not be recorded as such, for example because a coronavirus test was not performed.
Excess mortality figures show that in many countries this was significantly higher than the number of registered coronavirus deaths.
What does the look ahead show?
World Health Organization (WHO) Emergency Aid Coordinator Mike Ryan warned last Friday that it would be inconceivable, but not impossible, that another million people could die from the coronavirus if all states did not work to further contain the pathogen.
The time to act is now - and all aspects have to be implemented: testing, tracking contacts, social distancing, hygiene, masks, medical treatment and vaccines.
As long as all of this is not implemented, it is not only conceivable, but unfortunately also likely that there will be another million Covid 19 deaths in the future.
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