Sydney/ Beijing - The death toll from
Covid-19 surpassed half a million people on Sunday, according to
a Reuters tally, a grim milestone for the global pandemic that
seems to be resurgent in some countries even as other regions
are still grappling with the first wave.
The respiratory illness caused by the new coronavirus has
been particularly dangerous for the elderly, although other
adults and children are also among the 501,000 fatalities and
10.1 million reported cases.
While the overall rate of death has flattened in recent
weeks, health experts have expressed concerns about record
numbers of new cases in countries like the United States, India
and Brazil, as well as new outbreaks in parts of Asia.
More than 4,700 people are dying every 24 hours from
Covid-19-linked illness, according to Reuters calculations based
on an average from June 1 to 27.
That equates to 196 people per hour, or one person every 18
seconds.
A barber wears a protective face shield and gloves to help curb the spread of the coronavirus, as he shaves the beard of a customer at a local barber shop in Jiddah, Saudi Arabia. Picture: Amr Nabil/AP
About one-quarter of all the deaths so far have been in the
United States, the Reuters data shows. The recent surge in cases
has been most pronounced in a handful of Southern and Western
states that reopened earlier and more aggressively. U.S.
officials on Sunday reported around 44,700 new cases and 508
additional deaths.
Case numbers are also growing swiftly in Latin America, on
Sunday surpassing those diagnosed in Europe, making the region
the second most affected by the pandemic, after North America.
On the other side of the world, Australian officials were
considering reimposing social distancing measures in some
regions on Monday after reporting the biggest one-day rise in
infections in more than two months.
The first recorded death from the new virus was on Jan. 9, a
61-year-old man from the Chinese city of Wuhan who was a regular
shopper at a wet market that has been identified as the source
of the outbreak.
In just five months, the Covid-19 death toll has overtaken
the number of people who die annually from malaria, one of the
most deadly infectious diseases.
The death rate averages out to 78,000 per month, compared
with 64,000 Aids-related deaths and 36,000 malaria deaths,
according to 2018 figures from the World Health Organization.
The high number of deaths has led to changes to traditional
and religious 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 the bodies of Muslim
deceased 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. In New York, city crematories were at
one point working overtime, burning bodies into the night as
officials scouted for temporary interment sites.
In Iraq, former militiamen have dropped their guns to
instead dig graves for coronavirus victims at a specially
created cemetery. They have learned how to conduct Christian, as
well as Muslim, burials.
ELDERLY AT RISK
Public health experts are looking at how demographics affect
the death rates in different regions. Some European countries
with older populations have reported higher fatality rates, for
instance.
An April report by the European Centre for Disease
Prevention and Control looked at more than 300,000 cases in 20
countries and found that about 46% of all fatalities were over
the age of 80.
In Indonesia, hundreds of children are believed to have
died, a development health officials have attributed to
malnutrition, anemia and inadequate child health facilities.
Health experts caution that the official data likely does
not tell the full story, with many believing that both cases and
deaths have likely been underreported in some countries.