Covid death toll reaches three million

The global death toll from coronavirus has topped a staggering three million people amid repeated setbacks in the worldwide vaccination campaign and a deepening crisis in places such as Brazil, India and France.

The number of lives lost, as compiled by Johns Hopkins University in the US, is about equal to the population of Kyiv, Ukraine; Caracas, Venezuela; or metropolitan Lisbon, Portugal.

And the true number is believed to be significantly higher because of possible government concealment and the many cases overlooked in the early stages of the outbreak that began in Wuhan, China, at the end of 2019.

When the world back in January passed the bleak threshold of two million deaths, immunisation drives had just started in Europe and the United States.

While the campaigns in the US and Britain have hit their stride and people there are beginning to contemplate life after the pandemic, other places, mostly poorer countries but some rich ones as well, are lagging behind in putting shots in arms.

Worldwide, deaths are on the rise again, running at around 12,000 per day on average, and new cases are climbing, too, eclipsing 700,000 a day.

“This is not the situation we want to be in 16 months into a pandemic, where we have proven control measures,” said Maria Van Kerkhove, one of the World Health Organisation’s leaders on Covid-19.

Scotland has recorded a further 211 cases of coronavirus, the latest daily figures have revealed.

Meanwhile, Scotland reported no new deaths reported as being linked to the virus – although registry offices are generally closed at the weekend.

Figures published yesterday showed that 1.6% of tests for Covid-19 came back as positive.

A total of 2,744,231 people have received the first dose of the coronavirus vaccine – an increase of 10,844 on the previous day.

Some 738,420 have now received their second dose, a rise of 22,706 on Saturday’s total.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel has backed a short lockdown.