Five million deaths: Ensure vaccine equity

The scale of the tragedy still unfolding is in stark contrast to the fact that an estimated 7.8 billion vaccine doses have been administered — enough to cover the global population once over — but hundreds of millions of people are yet to receive their first shots, especially in poorer countries

The coronavirus has now killed at least five million people worldwide, less than two years after it first spread out of China. This number is certain to be an undercount, with the actual toll somewhere between two-to-four times higher, experts estimate. If each million deaths are considered an agonising milestone, the only silver lining is that the pace of confirmed deaths has slowed. The first million deaths took place over nine months — a period when most of the world was in strict lockdown — but the second took only three-and-a-half months. The next million fatalities occurred over three months and it took even less time, a mere 10 weeks, for the toll to exceed four million. The latest million deaths have taken four months. On average, there are still close to 7,000 deaths being recorded every day today.

Countries that have high rates of vaccination have decisively bent the curve, while confirmed deaths are stubbornly high where coverage has been low, and where the more dangerous Delta variant has taken hold. (REUTERS)

Countries that have high rates of vaccination have decisively bent the curve, while confirmed deaths are stubbornly high where coverage has been low, and where the more dangerous Delta variant has taken hold. Today, on average, the number of deaths confirmed is equivalent to more than two 9/11 attacks taking place every day. The scale of the tragedy still unfolding is in stark contrast to the fact that an estimated 7.8 billion vaccine doses have been administered — enough to cover the global population once over — but hundreds of millions of people are yet to receive their first shots, especially in poorer countries. It is important that these hundreds of millions get their fair chance of avoiding the tragedy that the families of at least five million people have witnessed. And for that, vaccine equity is the only way.