More than 1,000,000 people have now died after catching coronavirus, less than a year after the disease began to spread across the globe.
Since the start of the pandemic, there have been a total of 33,353,615 cases, according to data from the Johns Hopkins University Coronavirus Resource Center.
Last week the World Health Organisation (WHO) warned that it is ‘certainly unimaginable’ but ‘not impossible’ that the global death toll could hit 2 million, even with vaccine, unless countries work together to stop the spread of the disease.
Executive director of the body’s health emergencies programme Dr Mike Ryan said: ‘If we look at losing 1 million people in nine months and then we just look at the realities of getting vaccines out there in the next nine months, it’s a big task for everyone involved.
‘The real question is: Are we prepared, collectively, to do what it takes to avoid that number?’
Fatality rates have slowly dropped over the course of the outbreak due to better use of oxygen and steroid treatments for seriously ill patients.
But suggesting the world is by no means out of the woods, Dr Ryan urged countries to ‘evolve the nature and scale and intensity of our cooperation’, before a vaccine is widely available.
He added: ‘The time for action is now on every single aspect of this strategic approach. Not just test and trace, not just clinical care, not just social distancing, not just hygiene, not just masks, not just vaccines. Do it all.
‘And unless we do it all, [2 million deaths] are not only imaginable but unfortunately and sadly very likely.’
Late last year a mysterious pneumonia-like disease began emerging in the city of Wuhan, in China’s Hubei province, leading to the shutting down of a seafood market where several workers were infected.
On January 7 Chinese authorities said they had identified a new virus in the coronavirus family – which includes the common cold and the SARS virus.
Around mid-January cases were confirmed in the US, France, Nepal, Malaysia, South Korea, Vietnam Singapore, Taiwan and Thailand.
Towards the end of the month a diseases expert confirmed human-to-human transmission on Chinese state broadcaster CCTV, around the same time millions of people were travelling to celebrate the Lunar New Year.
On January 30 the WHO declared coronavirus a global emergency and within a few days, the disease had spread to India, the Philippines, Russia, Spain, the UK, Sweden, Australia, Canada, Germany, Japan and the UAE.
The 12 countries where no coronavirus cases have officially been reported are Kiribati, the Marshall Islands, Nauru and Palau -in Micronesia – North Korea, the Polynesian island of Samoa, the Solomon Islands, Tonga, Turkmenistan, Tuvalu and the South Pacific Ocean islands of Vanuatu.
These countries all shut off their borders early on, although in some cases, such as in Turkmenistan, medics have accused authorities of keeping infections under wraps.
So far the US, Brazil and India have confirmed the highest number of cases, with more than 15 million between them.
But countries across Europe are facing second waves after easing their initial lockdown measures, including the UK, where infections are thought to be increasing by between 4% and 8% per day.
Speaking at the WHO’s headquarters in Geneva, Dr Ryan urged European countries to ask if they had taken enough steps to avoid lockdown measures, such as effective test and trace systems, quarantine measures and social distancing rules.
He added: ‘Lockdowns are almost a last resort – and to think that we’re back in last-resort territory in September, that’s a pretty sobering thought.’
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