Almost two years since the COVID-19 pandemic began, the global death toll of coronavirus has reached 5 million on Monday.
Based on the data gathered by global health experts nearly half of these deaths were recorded in the United States, the European Union, Britain, and Brazil.
Among the COVID-19 hit nations, the US has the most number of deaths at 740,000.
Dr. Albert Ko, an infectious disease specialist at the Yale School of Public Health said to protect ourselves from the deadly disease we need to get vaccinated.
“This is a defining moment in our lifetime,” Ko said.
The experts said with the huge number of people who died of COVID it is now the third leading cause of death, after heart disease and stroke.
The experts revealed since the pandemic began, hot spots have shifted over the 22 months since the outbreak began, turning different places on the world map red.
At the moment, COVID is felt more in Russia, Ukraine, and other parts of Eastern Europe, especially where rumors, misinformation, and distrust in government have hobbled vaccination efforts.
As of the latest data, in Ukraine, only 17% of the adult population is fully vaccinated; in Armenia, only 7%.
In the US alone, COVID has taken an outsize toll on Black and Hispanic people, who are more likely than white people to live in poverty and have less access to health care.
Moreover, the experts said wealth has also played a role in the global vaccination drive, with rich countries accused of locking up supplies.
The U.S. and others are already dispensing booster shots at a time when millions across Africa haven’t received a single dose, though the rich countries are also shipping hundreds of millions of shots to the rest of the world.
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