As COVID-19 mandates relax in US, worldwide death toll reaches 6 million

According to the latest numbers from the Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center, the worldwide death toll from COVID-19 has eclipsed 6 million. Monday’s numbers also show there have been more than 446 million COVID-19 cases worldwide and more than 10 billion vaccine doses administered.

“If you set aside the number of confirmed COVID-19 deaths, 6 million as you said, the actual excess mortality is something like 21 million,” Tikki Pang, a visiting professor of global health at the National University of Singapore shown in the video above, said earlier this month. “And as you already mentioned yourself, that takes into account undiagnosed deaths, deaths that happen at home, undercounting, under reporting, because of lack of testing, and that’s all happening in the developing countries.”

It took the world seven months to record its first million deaths from the virus after the pandemic began in early 2020. Four months later, another million people had died. 1 million have died every three months since, until the death toll hit 5 million at the end of October.

Remote Pacific islands, whose isolation had protected them for more than two years, are just now grappling with their first outbreaks and deaths, fueled by the highly contagious omicron variant. Death rates are soaring in Hong Kong, as well.

“The Health Department has actually expanded cremation capacity which should raise efficiency. But with the increase of deaths, there’s a lot of backlogs of paperwork,” Hong Kong Funeral Business Association Vice President Derek Cheng said earlier this month. “Government departments involved in this work have people who are COVID-19 positive and that limits their work capacity. Therefore, there’s a lot of delay for corpse cremation or burial.”

In the United States, there have been more than 79 million cases and more than 958,000 deaths. As the country approaches 1 million COVID-19 deaths, restrictions in many parts of the country are being relaxed. On Friday, New York City Mayor Eric Adams announced mandates requiring masks in public schools and proof of vaccination to dine in restaurants or enter entertainment, sports and cultural venues will be lifted effective Monday. The video includes clips of Mayor Adams’ announcement.

“This is about giving people the flexibility that is needed to continue to allow not only safety, but we have to get our economy back on track,” Adams said. “It’s time to open our city and get the economy back operating.”