On January 11, 2020, the Chinese media reported the first novel coronavirus related death in the country. It’s been more than 11 months since the date. As of November 22, the COVID-19 death toll has ticked over 1.34 million death globally, with more than 55 million cases worldwide.

Within a month after the Sars-Cov-2, the virus responsible for causing COVID-19, spread in China, particularly in the Wuhan province, the country recorded one thousand deaths.

That initial toll was worse than the total number of deaths caused by earlier acute respiratory syndrome SARS, which circulated in Asia in 2002-2003 and led to 774 fatalities.

Countries and territories outside continental China were relatively untouched at that point but the virus was already starting to circulate there.

The Philippines registered its first case on February 2 and Hong Kong two days later, followed by Japan and France on February 13 and 14.

In February cases soared. By March 11, when the WHO declared the new coronavirus a “pandemic”, 4,500 deaths had been recorded worldwide, across 30 countries and territories.

Two-thirds were still in China but Italy and Iran saw cases escalate, with deaths following soon.

On March 13, WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus declared Europe had become the epicentre of the pandemic with more reported cases and deaths than the rest of the world combined, apart from China.

The number of people dying every day in Europe and the United States rose swiftly up until mid-April, reaching peaks in the second week of more than 4,000 and 2,700 average daily deaths respectively.

Today the United States remains the hardest-hit country for deaths, with over 250,000 recorded. The COVID-19 has rampaged the country in unprecedented manner and eventually became a deciding factor in US presidential elections.

On a global scale, the deadliest week was April 13 to 19 when more than 7,460 coronavirus deaths were officially reported every day.

In June, the epicentre of the pandemic shifted to Latin America and the Caribbean. From July 15 to August 15, recorded deaths in the region did not drop below an average of 2,500 per day.

Brazil became the country with the most deaths in total after the United States (more than 168,000 deaths currently).

Taking into account the size of their populations, Peru (1,086 deaths per one million population), Argentina (812), Brazil (796) and Chile (789), are currently among the 10 worst-affected countries worldwide, alongside European countries like Belgium (1,323), Spain (898), United Kingdom (803) and Italy (793).

In Asia, where the toll was lower than 100 deaths per day up until mid-April, fatalities have been steadily increasing. The continent has exceeded 1,000 deaths per day almost continually since July 20.

India has been the worst hit, recording a total of 133,227 deaths and over 9,095,806 cases in total.

Meanwhile, Africa has been less affected than other continents. The total cases have climbed just over the two million-mark with 24 deaths reported in the last 24 hours, as of November 22 

In Oceania, meanwhile, the average daily number of deaths has never exceeded two dozen. The total number of cases now stands at a lowly 43,522.

Even as all these tragic numbers keep stack up there is, however, a new sign of hope: US biotech giant Pfizer and German partner BioNTech announced Friday they will seek approval to roll out their coronavirus vaccine early.

The final results from the late-stage trial of Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine show it was 95% effective. Another vaccine candidate developed by Moderna Inc. also showed a similar level of accuracy. 

Russia has also claimed a 92% effectiveness for its Sputnik V vaccine candidate, which is being tested on humans in mid-to late-stage trials by Hyderabad-based Dr Reddy’s Laboratories in India.