快猫短视频

IT BEGAN on 9 January. In a hospital in Wuhan, China, a 61-year-old man became the first person on the planet . At the time, scientists didn鈥檛 believe there was strong evidence of transmission between humans.

On 29 September, the global death toll reached a million people, after the virus spread out from Wuhan and exploded around the world. The true count is far higher and won鈥檛 be established for years, as many killed by the virus weren鈥檛 tested (see 鈥�Can we trust the numbers?鈥�). What happened?

Within weeks of that first reported death in China, cases appeared in Thailand, Japan and South Korea. The first fatality outside China was confirmed . On 11 March, the World Health Organization (WHO) declared a pandemic.

In the months since, virtually no country has gone untouched by covid-19 or the coronavirus that causes it. Only island states, such as Saint Lucia and the Seychelles, and secretive states, including Eritrea, have recorded zero deaths.

Without adjusting for population size, the worst-hit country by far is the US with more than 194,000 deaths, followed by Brazil, India, Mexico and the UK.

At first, the uptick in deaths from covid-19 was gradual. It took two months for the death toll to surpass the 774 killed in the 2003 SARS epidemic, which was caused by another coronavirus. Then things accelerated (see graph). The disease took three-and-a-half months to kill 200,000 people. The next 200,000 deaths occurred in just under two months, and the following 200,000 took a similar amount of time. By late August, it had taken only around one month for another 200,000 people to die.

鈥淭he fastest growth has been over that period at the end of July and most of August. Now we鈥檙e seeing a slight slowing in that death rate,鈥� says Hannah Ritchie at Our World in Data, which has been tracking data on the pandemic since the outbreak started.

Every day for the past few weeks, 5000 to 6000 people have died globally from an illness that nobody had heard of a year ago. Those figures have been stable for the past month, but there is no guarantee that will continue.

鈥淎 slow burn can still be very terrible in the long run,鈥� says Jennifer Dowd at the University of Oxford. 鈥淚t鈥檚 still a wildfire that you want to extinguish. Most of the world is still susceptible so there鈥檚 plenty of kindling. I think it鈥檚 going to vary, like a wildfire would, over time and space.鈥�

The focus of the pandemic has shifted around the globe in the past nine months. Even as deaths emerged around the world in February, the vast majority remained in China. It took severe restrictions on movement for the country鈥檚 fatalities to peter out in March.

鈥淚t鈥檚 a wildfire you want to extinguish. Most of the world is still susceptible so there鈥檚 plenty of kindling鈥�

Iran was next. In mid-February, the country , though subsequent data leaks .

Then deaths began to rise in Europe. Italy was first, followed by Spain and the UK, where newspapers dedicated front pages to the first few individuals to die before the numbers became too great to record each life in detail.

鈥淧eople were asking how bad is this compared to flu? Then week 10 [the week beginning 2 March], 11, 12, 13, we could see this wasn鈥檛 just the flu, this was huge,鈥� says Lasse Vestergaard at EuroMOMO, which was set up after the 2009 to 2010 swine flu pandemic as an early-warning system for future pandemics, by monitoring excess deaths in 24 European countries.

New deaths since May have predominantly been in the Americas. 鈥淥bviously, the US was very hard hit and Latin America has been very hard hit regionally,鈥� says Ritchie. More people have been killed in New York than in any other US state. More than half of the global deaths so far have been in the Americas.

In recent weeks, another shift, as India has become the country with the second highest number of cases after the US. This has been accompanied by a rising death toll, which is now at more than 80,000. 鈥淚ndia has had a fairly consistent upward trajectory for some months and isn鈥檛 showing indications of slowing. But in terms of total population size, it鈥檚 still a very small fraction,鈥� says Oliver Watson at Imperial College London.

In the early days of the pandemic, limited testing for covid-19 hampered the ability of governments and researchers to see how many people the illness was really killing. 鈥淎t that point, we were slightly confused by the geographical distribution,鈥� says Ritchie. 鈥淲e didn鈥檛 really know the story elsewhere in the world, particularly in lower-income countries.鈥�

As that picture begins to crystallise, some questions remain. 鈥淚 think the surprise has been in lower-income countries, specifically in Africa,鈥� says Dowd. 鈥淚f we believe the mortality statistics, it hasn鈥檛 been as bad there [as expected].鈥� Official counts in African countries have been low. South Africa is the exception, with 15,000 deaths.

Researchers are still working out why case numbers are low in many lower-income countries. Possible reasons include a lack of data, having a younger population or simply that many imposed lockdowns quickly. Another explanation is that they haven鈥檛 been as heavily seeded by infections from air travel.

This seeding could also explain why, over time, there has largely been a shift from deaths in high-income countries to lower-income ones. As of 8 September, Watson has found that 45 per cent of deaths have been in high-income countries, 40.5 per cent in upper-middle-income, 13 per cent in lower-middle-income and just 0.6 per cent in low-income nations.

As for personal risk, when the first deaths struck each country, media reports often focused on whether those who had died had underlying health conditions, such as high blood pressure. 鈥淭he initial question was how lethal is this virus, is this just picking off the sickest and most frail,鈥� says Dowd. Many comparisons were made with flu, which kills between 290,000 and 650,000 people a year globally.

What has become clear is that covid-19 isn鈥檛 just killing those likely to die soon. 鈥淥n average, these people had a lot of life expectancy left,鈥� says Dowd. 鈥淪ome estimates are for the average person dying of covid, they had 11 years left.鈥�

Excess deaths

Excess death statistics also imply that most of those who have died from covid-19 weren鈥檛 about to die imminently. The US has already had more than 200,000 excess deaths this year, and the UK more than 60,000. If covid-19 was pulling forward deaths by a few months, those countries would have seen far fewer deaths than the long-term average after their covid-19 peaks. That hasn鈥檛 appeared and looks unlikely to do so, says Dowd.

Nonetheless, there are chronic health conditions that do increase the risk of death from covid-19, with among them. In the US, 94 per cent of people who died from covid-19 had underlying health conditions, known as comorbidities, with an average of 2.6 conditions per person.

Those figures were , repeated by US President Donald Trump, that only 6 per cent had really died of covid-19. In reality, many of the comorbidities were things brought on by covid-19, such as pneumonia.

Being a man, poorer, older and of black or South Asian rather than white ethnicity have also been of dying from the illness in some countries. In England, for instance, , which was linked to working in occupations more likely to be exposed to the virus, among other things.

鈥淭he very obvious risk factor is age,鈥� says Ritchie. 鈥淔rom 60 onwards, there鈥檚 just this very strong gradient. When it鈥檚 80-plus, the case fatality is much higher.鈥� Even so, the disease is unpredictable, and . 鈥淚t is by far elderly, but middle-aged and younger groups are not spared,鈥� says Vestergaard. Figures collected by EuroMOMO show that 90 per cent of deaths were in those aged 65 and up, 8 per cent in those aged 45-64 and 1 per cent for ages 5-44.

While immediate deaths are the focus today, experts say the pandemic鈥檚 effect on mortality will be long lasting. 鈥淭he health impacts will carry on much longer, possibly years down the line,鈥� says Ritchie. 鈥淚t鈥檚 not just about who鈥檚 dying right now. The health impacts accumulate over time.鈥�

It might take a year or two to see the effects of later diagnosis of cancers due to stressed healthcare systems, for example, or missed vaccinations for diseases like TB.

鈥淥n average, people dying from covid-19 had a lot of life expectancy left. Some estimates are 11 years鈥�

Similarly, Dowd says we are only just beginning to understand the chronic impacts of covid-19, or 鈥渓ong covid鈥�. 鈥淭hat鈥檚 sobering,鈥� she says. 鈥淓ven if we lower mortality now, what other types of scars on health and trends might we see from covid?鈥�

In the meantime, hotspots of covid-19 deaths are still burning brightly. Large numbers of people are dying each day in South America, in particular Brazil, Peru and Argentina, as well as Mexico. India is driving Asia鈥檚 toll. And while the US has a better grip on its epidemic, covid-19 is still killing thousands there each week.

There is some good news. Due to the way the world has adapted to the pandemic, from face coverings and social distancing to earlier detection and better treatments, a repeat of the steep jump in deaths experienced earlier this year is seen as unlikely. 鈥淚 really don鈥檛 see the deaths spiking as much as they did in the beginning, because we鈥檝e learned a lot,鈥� says Dowd.

Coronavirus Essential Guide
All you need to know about coronavirus and covid-19
Available now in the 快猫短视频 app

Daily coronavirus news round-up
Online every weekday at 6pm BST