Global coronavirus deaths pass 1-million milestone

The global death toll from Covid-19 rose past 1-million on Tuesday, a bleak milestone in a pandemic that has devastated the global economy, overloaded health systems and changed the way people live.

The number of deaths from the novel coronavirus this year is now double the number of people who die annually from malaria — and the death rate has increased in recent weeks as infections surge.

“Our world has reached an agonising milestone,” UN secretary-general Antonio Guterres said.

“It’s a mind-numbing figure. Yet we must never lose sight of each and every individual life. They were fathers and mothers, wives and husbands, brothers and sisters, friends and colleagues.”

It took just three months for Covid-19 deaths to double from half a million, an accelerating rate of fatalities since the first death was recorded in China in early January.

More than 5,400 people are dying around the world every 24 hours, overwhelming funeral businesses and cemeteries.

That equates to about 226 people an hour, or one person every 16 seconds. In the time it takes to watch a 90-minute soccer match, 340 people die on average.

Experts remain concerned that the official figures for deaths and cases globally significantly underrepresent the real tally because of inadequate testing and recording and the possibility of concealment by some countries.

The response to the pandemic has pitted proponents of health measures such as lockdowns against those intent on sustaining politically sensitive economic growth, with approaches differing from country to country.

The US, Brazil and India, which together account for nearly 45% of all Covid-19 deaths globally, have all lifted social distancing measures in recent weeks.

“The American people should anticipate that cases will rise in the days ahead,” US Vice President Mike Pence warned on Monday. US deaths stood at 205,132 and cases at 7.18-million by late Monday.

India, meanwhile, has recorded the highest daily growth in infections in the world, with an average of 87,500 new cases a day since the beginning of September.

On current trends, India will overtake the US as the country with the most confirmed cases by the end of the year, even as it eases lockdown measures in a bid to support a struggling economy.

Despite the surge in cases, India’s death toll of 96,318, and pace of growth of fatalities,

[Deaths] equate to about 226 people an hour, or one person every 16 seconds

remains below those of the US, Britain and Brazil. India on Tuesday reported its smallest rise in deaths since August 3, continuing a recent easing trend that has baffled experts.

In Europe, which accounts for nearly 25% of deaths, the World Health Organisation (WHO) has warned of a worrying spread in Western Europe just weeks away from the winter flu season.

The WHO has also warned that the pandemic still needed major control interventions amid rising cases in Latin America, where many countries have started to resume normal life.

The high number of deaths has led to changes in burial rites around the world, with morgues and funeral businesses overwhelmed and loved ones often barred from bidding farewell in person.

In Israel, the custom of washing bodies is not permitted, and instead of being shrouded in cloth, they must be wrapped in a plastic body bag. The Jewish tradition of Shiva where people go to the home of mourning relatives for seven days has also been disrupted.

In Italy, Catholics have been buried without funerals or a blessing from a priest, while in Iraq former militiamen dropped their guns to dig graves at a specially created cemetery and learned how to conduct both Christian and Muslim burials.

The US, Indonesia, Bolivia, SA and Yemen have all had to locate new burial sites as cemeteries fill up. —