International - July 8, 2021

Global death toll surpasses 4 million; delta variant dominant strain in the US: Latest COVID-19 updates

abrempongradiogh July 8, 2021

0 4 min read

The global death toll from COVID-19 eclipsed 4 million Wednesday as the crisis increasingly becomes a race between the vaccine and highly contagious variants.

The tally of lives lost over the past year and a half, as compiled from official sources Johns Hopkins University, is about equal to the number of people killed in battle in all of the world’s wars since 1982, according to estimates from the Peace Research Institute Oslo.

The toll is three times the number of people killed in traffic accidents around the globe every year. It is about equal to the population of Los Angeles or the nation of Georgia. It is equivalent to more than half of Hong Kong or close to 50% of New York City.

Even then, it is widely believed to be an undercount because of overlooked cases or deliberate concealment.

It comes as variants surge across the world, especially the delta variant, considered more infectious than the original strain. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention projects the highly transmissible delta variant, first identified in India, is now the dominant strain in the U.S. The variant makes up 51.7% of all new infections, according to CDC data.

It’s not just a problem in the U.S. Germany’s disease control center on Wednesday announced the delta variant has become dominant in the country, nearly doubling within one week. A French government spokesperson said cases increased 20% from last week because of the variant. And in the United Kingdom, where the variant has also been circulating, officials reported more than 30,000 daily infections for the first time since January.

source: us today