Global death toll from COVID-19 tops 200,000

The global death toll from COVID-19 has topped 200,000 and the number of patients is reaching three million, which shows the virus is still spreading rapidly.

According to Worldometer, an international statistics website, the death toll from the virus was 203,307 as of 3:00 p.m. Sunday. It has been three and a half months since the first death had been reported in Wuhan, Hubei province in China on January 10. The death toll has grown from 100,000 on April 10 to 200,000 in just 15 days.

More than a quarter of deaths worldwide were recorded in the U.S. (54,265). Major European countries have seen more than 20,000 deaths including 26,384 in Italy, 22,902 in Spain, 22,614 in France and 20,319 in U.K.

The cumulative number of confirmed cases worldwide is 2,922,078, which is soon to exceed three million. The number of patients exceeded one million on April 3 and two million on April 15. The U.S. has 960,896 patients, which is one-third of the total. Spain (223,759), Italy (195,351), France (161,488), Germany (156,513) and the U.K. (148,377) have the most number of patients after the U.S.


Ji-Sun Choi aurinko@donga.com