CHICAGO/SYDNEY: On Thursday, according to a Reuters tally, the deaths from COVID-19 passed 300,000 worldwide as infections approached 4.5 million with the United States responsible for more than a quarter of all fatalities.
The United Kingdom including Italy accounted for another 10-11% each making the tally rise, while France and Spain further accounted for 9% each.
Four months death number from COVID-19 is now as same as around three-quarters of the number of people who lose their lives from malaria every year. Though malaria is one of the world’s most deadly infectious diseases.
However, the recent trajectory falls short of the 1918 Spanish flu had a terrible result on the economy and well-being in the world infecting an estimated 500 million people and deadly virus claimed approximately 10% of patients, falls short medical professionals worry the available data is underplaying the true impact of the pandemic.
On January 10 in Wuhan, China, the first death case from coronavirus was reported. Changing the world worrisome, the virus further within 91 days took 100,000 lives and meeting no solution of combating its spread it took the tally to 200,000 after 16 days, according to the Reuters tally of official reports from governments. It took 19 days to go from 200,000 to 300,000 deaths.
The grim milestone of 300,000 deaths was reached as a US government whistleblower said the United States could face “the darkest winter” of recent times if it does not improve its response to the pandemic.
Rick Bright, the former director of the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority to a US House of representative panel declared, “Our window of opportunity is closing,”
“if we can’t fight with a strong response now, based on science, I fear the pandemic will get worse and be prolonged,” Bright said.
He further to the panel that he was removed from the post for raising concerns about preparedness and has been re-assigned to another government job.
The reported cases of death from new coronavirus are more than 85,000 in United States while The United Kingdom and Italy have reported more than 30,000 fatalities each, and France and Spain more than 27,000 each.
Brazil with a much lower 13,149 fatalities is the sixth-highest death toll with a quick climbing fatality rate. Last past week, the country has reported an average of almost 700 new cases each day.