MEXICO CITY (PA) – The overall death toll in COVID-19 exceeded 2 million on Friday, crossing the threshold amid a huge but so uneven vaccine launch that in some countries there is real hope of overcoming the outbreak. , while in others, less developed parts of the world, it seems a distant dream.
The shocking figure was reached just over a year after the coronavirus was first detected in the Chinese city of Wuhan. The death toll, compiled by Johns Hopkins University, is roughly equal to the population of Brussels, Mecca, Minsk or Vienna. It is roughly equivalent to the Cleveland metropolitan area or the entire state of Nebraska.
“It was a terrible amount of deaths,” said Dr. Ashish Jha, a pandemic expert and dean of Brown University’s School of Public Health. At the same time, he said, “our scientific community has done an extraordinary job.”
In rich countries, including the United States, the United Kingdom, Israel, Canada and Germany, millions of citizens have already received some measure of protection with at least one dose of vaccine developed at a revolutionary rate and quickly authorized for use.
But elsewhere, the immunization actions have just come off the ground. Many experts predict another year of losses and difficulties in places such as Iran, India, Mexico and Brazil, which together account for about a quarter of the world’s deaths.
“As a country, as a society, as a citizen I didn’t understand,” lamented Israel Gomez, a paramedic from Mexico City who spent months transporting COVID-19 patients by ambulance in desperate search of hospital beds. vacant. “I didn’t understand that this is not a game, that it really exists.”
Mexico, a country of 130 million people, received only 500,000 doses of vaccine and put only half of them in the arms of health workers.
This contrasts sharply with the situation of its richer northern neighbor. Despite early delays, hundreds of thousands of people roll up their sleeves every day in the United States, where the virus has killed about 390,000, by far the largest number in any country.
Overall, more than 35 million doses of various COVID-19 vaccines have been administered worldwide, according to Oxford University.
While vaccination actions in rich countries have been blocked by long lines, inadequate budgets and a combination of state and local approaches, obstacles are much greater in poorer countries, which may have poor health systems, collapsed transport networks. , ingrained corruption and lack of reliable electricity to keep vaccines cold enough.
Also, most doses of COVID-19 vaccine in the world have already been raised by rich countries. COVAX, a UN-backed project to provide fire in developing parts of the world, has found itself without vaccines, money and logistical assistance.
As a result, the World Health Organization scientist has warned that the immunity of the herd – which would require vaccination of at least 70% of the globe – is unlikely to be reached this year. As the disaster has shown, it is not enough to remove the virus in a few places.
“Even if it happens in a few pockets, in a few countries, it will not protect people around the world,” Dr. Soumya Swaminathan said this week.
Health experts also fear that if the shots are not widely distributed and fast enough, it could give the virus time to move and defeat the vaccine – “my nightmare scenario”, as Jha said.
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said the $ 2 million milestone “was exacerbated by a lack of a coordinated global effort.” He added: “Science has succeeded, but solidarity has failed.”
Meanwhile, in Wuhan, where the scourge was discovered at the end of 2019, a global team of researchers led by the WHO arrived on Thursday on a politically sensitive mission to investigate the origins of the virus, which is believed to have spread. in people from wild animals.
The Chinese city of 11 million people is full of life again, with few signs that it was once the epicenter of the catastrophe, blocked for 76 days, with over 3,800 dead.
“We are not afraid and worried as we have been in the past,” said Qin Qiong, the owner of a noodle shop. “We are living a normal life now. I take the subway every day to come to work in the store. … Except for our customers, who have to wear masks, everything else is the same. ”
It took eight months to hit 1 million dead, but less than four months later to reach the next million.
While the death toll is based on figures provided by government agencies around the world, the actual number of lives lost is believed to be significantly higher, in part due to inadequate testing and numerous deaths attributed inaccurately to other causes, especially in early epidemic.
“What has never been on the horizon is that so many deaths would occur in the richest countries in the world,” said Dr. Bharat Pankhania, an infectious disease expert at the University of Exeter in the United Kingdom. “The fact that the richest countries in the world would mismanage so badly is just shocking.”
In rich and poor countries, both the crisis has devastated economies, thrown out labor and plunged many into poverty.
In Europe, where more than a quarter of the world’s deaths have occurred, strict blockages and extinctions have been put in place to remove a recurrence of the virus and a new variant that is thought to be more contagious is circulating in the UK and other countries, as well as the USA
Even in some of the richest countries, vaccination rates have been slower than expected. France, with the second largest economy in Europe and more than 69,000 known deaths from the virus, will need years, not months, to vaccinate its 53 million adults, unless which suddenly accelerates its deployment, hampered by shortages, bureaucracy and considerable suspicion of vaccines.
However, in places like Poissy, a blue-collar city west of Paris, the first photos of the Pfizer formula were lightened and they felt that there was light at the end of the pandemic tunnel.
“We have been living in it for almost a year. It’s not a life, “said Maurice Lachkar, a 78-year-old acupuncturist who was included in the list of priorities for vaccination because of his diabetes and his age. “If I catch the virus, I’m done.”
Maurice and his wife, Nicole, who were also vaccinated, said they could even afford hugs with their two children and four grandchildren, whom they saw from a social security distance only once. or twice since the pandemic hit.
“It will be liberating,” he said.
Across the developing world, the images are strikingly similar: rows and rows of graves being dug, hospitals pushed to the limit and medical workers dying for lack of protective equipment.
In Peru, which has the highest COVID-19 mortality rate in Latin America, hundreds of health workers went on strike this week to demand better wages and working conditions in a country where 230 doctors have died of the disease. In Brazil, authorities in the largest city in the Amazon rainforest have planned to transfer hundreds of patients due to a small amount of oxygen tanks that have killed people at home.
In Honduras, anesthesiologist Cesar Umaña treats 25 patients by telephone in their homes because hospitals do not have the capacity and equipment.
“This is complete chaos,” he said.
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Cheng reported from Toronto, Leicester from Poissy, France and Goodman from Miami. Associated Press writers Victoria Milko from Jakarta, Indonesia and David Biller from Rio de Janeiro contributed to this report, along with AP video journalist Sam McNeil from Wuhan, China.