The global death toll from COVID-19 has now exceeded two million.
The landmark was reached on Friday amid such a large but uneven vaccine distribution that in some countries there is hope of extinction, but in other parts of the world, it seems to be it is a distant dream.
The numbing figure was crossed just over a year after the coronavirus was first detected in the Chinese city of Wuhan. The death toll, high by Johns Hopkins University, is equal to the population of Brussels, Mecca, Minsk or Vienna.
More than 93 million cases of the virus have been diagnosed worldwide since the outbreak began, according to Johns Hopkins University.
Europe is the continent where the health crisis has been devastating, with 650,560 deaths to date.
Latin America and the Caribbean have recorded 542,410 deaths, while the United States and Canada have counted 407,090.
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has called on a global alliance to tackle pandemic, marking the “heart-wrenching” milestone.
“Sadly, the deadly impact of pandemic disease is exacerbated by a lack of globally coordinated effort,” he said in a video.
In rich countries including the USA, the United Kingdom, Israel, Canada and Germany, millions of citizens have been given a measure of protection with at least one dose of vaccine developed at a revolutionary pace and cleverly approved for use.
Elsewhere, vaccine drivers have barely been able to get off the ground. Many experts predict another year of loss and hardship in places like Iran, India, Mexico and Brazil, which together account for about a quarter of the world’s deaths .
“As a country, as a society, as citizens, we did not understand,” laments Israel Gomez, a paramedic in Mexico City who spent months shutting COVID-19 patients around in an ambulance, looking intently for empty hospital beds.
“We haven’t realized that this isn’t a game, that this really is.”
Mexico, a country with 130 million people who have suffered severely from the virus, has received just 500,000 doses of vaccines and has put nearly half of those in the arms of health care workers.
In the U.S., despite early delays, hundreds of thousands of people are putting up their sleeves every day. But the virus has killed about 390,000, the highest number in any country.
The COVID-19 Vaccines Global Access Facility – COVAX, a project supported by the DA to provide insights to parts of the developing world – has been found to be short of vaccines, money and supply assistance.
Our world has reached a heart milestone: # COVID19 has now gained two million lives.
Sadly, the impact of pandemic is exacerbated by the lack of global coordination.
In memory of those two million souls, the world needs to be stronger. pic.twitter.com/wFGZpiLmIj
– António Guterres (@antonioguterres) January 15, 2021
As a result, a leading scientist at the World Health Organization has warned that herd protection – which would require at least 70 percent of the world ‘s vaccination – is unlikely to be achieved this year.
Health experts fear, too, that if scenes are not spread widely and fast enough, it would take time for the virus to get around.
Dr Julian Tang, from the University of Leicester, said this number was not surprising given the circumstances.
“This is a new virus that no one is really immune to, and we are going through the winter season where these respiratory viruses traditionally arrive,” he told Al Jazeera.
“The coronavirus vaccines are a bit late, so we’ve put it all together, the winter season, the delay [in] vaccination, indoor collection that comes with the winter season, this kind of peak and mortality … that’s very likely not surprising, ”he said.
Meanwhile, in Wuhan, a global team of WHO-led researchers arrived on Thursday on a politically conscious expedition to investigate the origins of the virus, which is believed to have spread to humans from wild animals.
The Chinese city of 11 million people is busy again, with few signs that it was once the main heart of the crash, locked down for 76 days, with more than 3,800 dead.
“We’re not as scared or worried as we were before,” said Qin Qiong, noodle shop owner.
“We are now living a normal life. I take the subway every day to come to work in the shop… except for our customers, who have to wear masks, everything is others likewise. “
While the death toll is based on statistics provided by government agencies around the world, the actual number of lives lost is believed to be much higher.