Global COVID-19 death toll hits 1 million

The coronavirus pandemic has now claimed one million lives around the globe, according to the latest official death tolls, with more than 33 million cases.

In total, 1,000,207 people have died according to Worldometer, which calculates the totalsfrom sources including governments. The Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Centre, which also calculates global totals, was reporting a figure of 995,190.

Since the first-known cases emerged at a Wuhan wet market in December 2019, the pattern of life has been drastically, perhaps in some ways irrevocably, altered the world over.

Within six months, Covid-19 had taken at least 500,000 lives and infected 10 million people. It has taken just half that time for the known death toll to double.

However, the true number of deaths and infections are likely far higher due to a lack of sufficient testing and reporting in many countries.

Europe, which emerged as an early epicentre of the virus is now battling a second resurgence as the continent enters the winter months, with governments and citizens grappling with the prospect of renewed curbs on personal freedoms.

And with populists at the helm in US and Brazil, where both Donald Trump and Jair Bolsonaro have sought to publicly play down the seriousness of the virus and resisted mitigation efforts that could hamper the economy, the Americas remain the hardest-hit, having quickly seen their death tolls soar once the virus took hold.

But while the abrupt plunges into the red cut an alarming trajectory, many economists were buoyed by the promise of a relatively sharp rise once lockdowns and curfews were lifted.

However, speaking on Thursday, the second-in-command at the IMF - which has poured $90bn in funding to nations since the crisis began - warned that the recovery was taking longer than expected, and that it could take some countries years to return to states of growth.

Yet following an unprecedented reconcentration of scientific efforts worldwide, our ability to adapt to and combat the virus grow ever stronger.

The virus’s genetic makeup was quickly sequenced, allowing for successful tests to be quickly developed and creating a groundwork for vaccine creation.

As contact-tracing systems around the world grow increasingly advanced, and work on creating faster, more accurate tests continues, trials are also underway on promising treatment methods, such as dexamethasone and convalescent blood plasma.

And of some 200 inoculations being developed globally, eight are in the final phase of clinical trials. The UK’s top advisors have suggested a vaccine could be widely available by autumn 2021.