3 But daily cases remain below levels not seen since March 2020 SEVEN-DAY AVERAGE OF DAILY DEATHS AND PEOPLE FULLY VACCINATED ACROSS THE WORLD

But despite the resurgence of cases across the world, what has been starkly different in the post-vaccinated world has been how well deaths have been contained. In the past week, there have been an average of 1,633 deaths across the world every day. This is the lowest that this number has been in more than two years – the only time the world has seen fewer people die was before March 2020, when the pandemic was just finding its first footing in countries across the world.

In fact, even during the Omicron surge, which saw cases soar to several times what previous records were, daily deaths never even came close to crossing the peaks seen during the Delta wave.

The reason that the latest surges have never been as fatal as the ones from earlier surges from 2020 and early 2021 is largely due to two reasons. First, over the course of the two years of the pandemic, doctors across the world have perfected the treatment, medicines, and resources (such as Oxygen) needed for treatment of the disease, and as such have been devising better ways for treatment. Second is the impact of vaccination. In each subsequent wave, the proportion of the people vaccinated across the world has been increasing. During the more fatal surges in 2020 and early 2021, no vaccine had been developed for the disease, so not a single person in the world had been vaccinated. As this coverage has increased, it has suppressed the fatality of Covid-19.

This also offers us a real glimpse of how the world will eventually go on to live with the coronavirus disease – surges will come and go, but long countries focus on expanding vaccine coverage (which includes booster shots) , loss of life and livelihood will largely remain contained.