At least 1 million people have
now died from COVID-19. This grim milestone comes over eight months after the
public first learned that a mysterious respiratory virus was infecting people
in China.
The novel coronavirus swept
quickly across the globe and overwhelmed hospitals from Italy to New York City.
The virus has caused a larger death toll in some places than in others;
the toll is highest in the U.S. with more than 204,900 deaths, followed by more
than 141,700 deaths in Brazil and more than 95,500 deaths in India, according
to the Johns Hopkins dashboard.
ut the official tally is likely
lower than the actual death toll of the virus, Dr. Mike Ryan, the executive
director of the World Health Organization's health emergencies program said on
Monday (Sept. 28). "When you count anything, you can't count it perfectly
but I can assure you that the current numbers are likely an underestimate of
the true toll of COVID," he said.
On Friday (Sept. 25), Ryan said
it's possible the death toll could double to 2 million before vaccines become
available, at least if countries don't work to stop the spread.
"It's certainly
unimaginable, but it's not impossible, because 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," he said, according
to CNBC. "The real question is: Are we prepared, collectively, to do
what it takes to avoid that number?"
Still, fatality rates have
slowly declined over time because experts have started to understand how best
to treat severe patients, for instance figuring out how to best deliver oxygen
and giving the steroid dexamethasone, Ryan said, according to CNBC In the U.S.,
COVID-19 is on track to become the third-leading cause of death in 2020, after
heart disease and cancer, Live Science
previously reported.
The Institute
for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) model predicts that nearly
167,000 more people will die in the U.S. by January 2021. Worldwide, at
least 33.2 million people have contracted the novel coronavirus, and more than
7.1 million of those cases come from the U.S., according to the Johns Hopkins
dashboard.
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