The global COVID-19 death toll, compiled by John Hopkins University, stood at 6,001,907, on Monday — a sign of the unrelenting pandemic. Credit: Anis Mujahid Akbar, via Wikimedia Commons/CC BY-SA 4.0On Monday, the global COVID-19 death toll eclipsed six million.
The milestone is the largest reminder of the unrelenting nature of the pandemic, even as people start shedding their masks and travel resumes. The death toll, compiled by John Hopkins University, stood at 6,001,907, as of Monday at 11:20 a.m. ET.
“This is a disease of the unvaccinated”
Death rates worldwide are still highest among people who are unvaccinated against the virus.
“This is a disease of the unvaccinated,” said Tikki Pang, a visiting professor at the National University of Singapore’s medical school and co-Chair of the Asia Pacific Immunization Coalition, in an interview with the AP. “The large majority of the deaths and the severe cases are in the unvaccinated, vulnerable segment of the population.”
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, and one million have died every three months since the death toll hit five million at the end of October. Now it has reached six million — more than the populations of Berlin and Brussels combined — roughly six months later.
