Global virus death toll tops 2 million after just over 1 year

MEXICO CITY — The global death toll from COVID-19 topped 2 million Friday, crossing the threshold amid a vaccine rollout so immense but so uneven that in some countries there is real hope of vanquishing the outbreak, while in other, less-developed parts of the world, it seems a far-off dream.

The numbing figure was reached just over a year after the coronavirus was first detected in the Chinese city of Wuhan. The number of dead, compiled by Johns Hopkins University, is about equal to the population of Brussels, Mecca, Minsk or Vienna. It is roughly equivalent to the Cleveland metropolitan area or the entire state of Nebraska.

In wealthy countries including the United States, Britain, Israel, Canada and Germany, millions of citizens have already been given some measure of protection with at least one dose of vaccine developed with revolutionary speed and quickly authorized for use.

But elsewhere, immunization drives have barely gotten off the ground. Many experts are predicting another year of loss and hardship in places like Iran, India, Mexico and Brazil, which together account for about a quarter of the world’s deaths.

All told, over 35 million doses of various COVID-19 vaccines have been administered around the world, according to the University of Oxford.

Health experts fear, too, that if shots are not distributed widely and fast enough, it could give the virus time to mutate and defeat the vaccine.

U.N. Secretary General Antonio Guterres said the grim milestone “has been made worse by the absence of a global coordinated effort.” He added: “Science has succeeded, but solidarity has failed.”

It took eight months to hit 1 million dead but less than four months after that to reach the next million.

While the death toll is based on figures supplied by government agencies around the world, the real number of lives lost to COVID-19 is believed to be significantly higher, in part because of inadequate testing and the many fatalities inaccurately attributed to other causes, especially early in the outbreak.

Census court case: Government attorneys and municipalities fighting over the 2020 census asked a judge Friday to put their court case on hold, as Department of Justice attorneys confirmed the Census Bureau for now will not release numbers that could be used to exclude people in the U.S. illegally from the process of divvying up congressional seats.

Department of Justice attorneys and attorneys for a coalition of municipalities and advocacy groups that had sued President Donald Trump’s administration over the 2020 census asked U.S. District Judge Lucy Koh to suspend their court case for 21 days so the administration of President-elect Joe Biden can take power and decide how to proceed.

Department of Justice attorney Brad Rosenberg said during a court hearing Friday that producing documents for the court case had burdened the Census Bureau as it worked to finish crunching the numbers used for allocating congressional seats and Electoral College votes by state, as well as the distribution of $1.5 trillion each year in federal spending.

Those numbers likely aren’t going to be ready until early March as the Census Bureau works to fix data irregularities, Department of Justice attorneys said this week.

Koh said she would grant the request provided it is put into a court agreement in which any violations can be enforced with sanctions, or a violator can be held in contempt.

Russia to exit treaty: Russia said Friday that it will withdraw from an international treaty allowing surveillance flights over military facilities after the U.S. exit from the pact, compounding the challenges faced by the incoming administration of President-elect Joe Biden.

Russia’s Foreign Ministry said in a statement that the U.S. withdrawal from the Open Skies Treaty last year “significantly upended the balance of interests of signatory states,” adding that Moscow’s proposals to keep the treaty alive after the U.S. exit have been cold-shouldered by Washington’s allies.

Mexico blasts DEA: Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador said Friday that the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration had “fabricated” drug trafficking accusations against his country’s former defense minister and then his government published what he said was the entire case file provided by U.S. authorities when they sent him back to Mexico.

The unprecedented move came one day after Mexico’s Attorney General’s Office announced it was dropping the drug trafficking case against retired Gen. Salvador Cienfuegos.

The U.S. government dropped its charges against Cienfuegos in November in a diplomatic concession to the important bilateral relationship and sent him back to Mexico, where he was immediately released.

Norway attack hoax: A Norwegian court on Friday sentenced the partner of a former minister to 20 months in prison after she was found guilty of endangering the country’s democracy by making up threats and vandalizing her own house and car in an attempt to show that the couple’s privacy had been invaded by a theater production.

The defendant, Anita Laila Bertheussen, is the partner of former justice minister Tor Mikkel Wara, of the right-wing Progress Party. She was found guilty of sending anonymous threats to Wara and to another minister, of daubing their own house and car with the word “racist” and a swastika, and later of setting the car on fire — all to prove her false assertion that the couple were under attack.

Fred Rogers’ widow dies: Joanne Rogers, an accomplished concert pianist who celebrated and protected the legacy of her husband, the beloved children’s TV host Mister Rogers, has died in Pittsburgh. She was 92.

Rogers died Thursday, according to the Fred Rogers Center. No cause of death was given.

The center called her “a joyful and tender-hearted spirit, whose heart and wisdom have guided our work in service of Fred’s enduring legacy.”

Joanne and Fred Rogers were married for more than 50 years, spanning the launch and end of the low-key, low-tech “Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood,” which presented Fred Rogers as one adult in a busy world who always had time to listen to children. His pull as America’s favorite neighbor never seemed to wane before his death in 2003.

The city of Pittsburgh, where the show was produced, tweeted that Joanne Rogers was one of Pittsburgh’s “greatest neighbors.”

Other tributes came from such varied fans as tennis star Billie Jean King to designer Kenneth Cole.

CRAIG RUTTLE/AP Over the edge: A bus that plunged off a highway overpass in the Bronx borough of New York City late Thursday night dangles Friday. Seven passengers were injured. The 55-year-old driver broke his jaw but refused a drug and alcohol test after being taken to a hospital for treatment, authorities said.