The COVID-19 pandemic has caused the death of at least 4,333,013 people around the world since the first cases were detected in China at the end of 2019, according to a report of Friday, August 13 by the French agency of AFP news.
According to the report, which is based on data communicated daily by the national authorities of each country, more than 205,356,020 cases of infection have been officially diagnosed since the beginning of the pandemic.
In the last 34 hours, there were 10,296 new deaths and 706,666 new cases of covid-19 worldwide.
The vast majority of patients eventually recover, but a part – still poorly evaluated – maintain symptoms for weeks or even months.
The countries that registered the highest number of deaths in their most recent reports were Indonesia, with 1,466 new deaths, Brazil, with 1,148 deaths, and Russia, with 815 fatalities.
The United States is the most affected country, both in terms of deaths and number of cases, with 619,093 deaths to 36,306,917 cases, according to the Johns Hopkins University count.
After the United States, the most affected countries are Brazil, with 566,896 deaths and 20,285,067 cases, India, with 430,254 deaths (32,117,826 cases), Mexico, with 246,811 deaths (3,045,571 cases), and Peru, with 197,209 deaths (2,130,018 cases).
Among the hardest-hit countries, Peru has the highest number of deaths in relation to its population, with 598 deaths per 100,000 inhabitants, followed by Hungary (311), Bosnia (296), the Czech Republic (284), Brazil (267) and, finally, by Northern Macedonia (265).
The Latin America and Caribbean region today, at 10:00 GMT local, totalled 1,401,200 deaths for 41,882,168 cases, while Europe had 1,218,433 deaths and 60,294,995 cases.
Asia totalled, at the same time, 717,566 deaths in 46,974,119 cases, and the United States and Canada region registered 645,782 deaths in 37,753,149 cases.
The African continent had 180,994 deaths in 7,166,244 cases, while the Middle East had 167,528 deaths in 11,188,389 cases and Oceania had 1,510 deaths in 96,962 cases.
The assessment presented daily by the AFP is based on data collected by the agency’s delegations from the competent national authorities and with information from the World Health Organization (WHO).
Due to corrections made by the authorities or late publication of data, the evolution numbers of the last 24 hours may not exactly match those published the day before.
Furthermore, the figures exclude ‘post reviews by statistical bodies, which sometimes conclude that a much higher number of deaths have been recorded.
The WHO even estimates, taking into account the excess mortality directly and indirectly associated with covid-19, that the results of the pandemic are maybe two to three times higher than those officially presented.
A significant proportion of less severe or asymptomatic cases also remain undetected, despite the intensification of screening in many countries.
In Portugal, since March 2020, 17,514 people have died and 993,241 cases of infection have been registered, according to the Directorate-General for Health.
The respiratory disease is caused by the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus, detected at the end of 2019 in Wuhan, a city in central China, and currently with variants identified in countries such as the United Kingdom, India, South Africa, Brazil, and Peru.
