Mon, Jun 29, 2020 By Jane Wardell and Cate Cadell
SYDNEY/BEIJING
(Reuters) – The death toll from COVID-19 surpassed half a million people on
Sunday, according to a Reuters tally, a grim milestone for the global pandemic
that seems to be resurgent in some countries even as other regions are still
grappling with the first wave.
The respiratory
illness caused by the new coronavirus has been particularly dangerous for the
elderly, although other adults and children are also among the 501,000
fatalities and 10.1 million reported cases.
While the overall rate
of death has flattened in recent weeks, health experts have expressed concerns
about record numbers of new cases in countries like the United States, India
and Brazil, as well as new outbreaks in parts of Asia.
More than 4,700 people
are dying every 24 hours from COVID-19-linked illness, according to Reuters
calculations based on an average from June 1 to 27.
That equates to 196
people per hour, or one person every 18 seconds. (To see a Reuters interactive,
open this link in an external browser: https://tmsnrt.rs/2VqS5PS)
About one-quarter of
all the deaths so far have been in the United States, the Reuters data shows.
The recent surge in cases has been most pronounced in a handful of Southern and
Western states that reopened earlier and more aggressively. U.S. officials on
Sunday reported around 44,700 new cases and 508 additional deaths.
Case numbers are also
growing swiftly in Latin America, on Sunday surpassing those diagnosed in
Europe, making the region the second most affected by the pandemic, after North
America.
On the other side of
the world, Australian officials were considering reimposing social distancing
measures in some regions on Monday after reporting the biggest one-day rise in
infections in more than two months.
The first recorded
death from the new virus was on Jan. 9, a 61-year-old man from the Chinese city
of Wuhan who was a regular shopper at a wet market that has been identified as
the source of the outbreak.
In just five months,
the COVID-19 death toll has overtaken the number of people who die annually
from malaria, one of the most deadly infectious diseases.
The death rate
averages out to 78,000 per month, compared with 64,000 AIDS-related deaths and
36,000 malaria deaths, according to 2018 figures from the World Health
Organization.
CHANGING BURIAL RITES
The high number of
deaths has led to changes to traditional and religious burial rites around the
world, with morgues and funeral businesses overwhelmed and loved ones often
barred from bidding farewell in person.
In Israel, the custom
of washing the bodies of Muslim deceased is not permitted, and instead of being
shrouded in cloth, they must be wrapped in a plastic body bag. The Jewish
tradition of Shiva where people go to the home of mourning relatives for seven
days has also been disrupted.
In Italy, Catholics
have been buried without funerals or a blessing from a priest. In New York,
city crematories were at one point working overtime, burning bodies into the
night as officials scouted for temporary interment sites.
In Iraq, former
militiamen have dropped their guns to instead dig graves for coronavirus
victims at a specially created cemetery. They have learned how to conduct
Christian, as well as Muslim, burials.
ELDERLY AT RISK
Public health experts
are looking at how demographics affect the death rates in different regions.
Some European countries with older populations have reported higher fatality
rates, for instance.
An April report by the
European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control looked at more than 300,000
cases in 20 countries and found that about 46% of all fatalities were over the
age of 80.
In Indonesia, hundreds
of children are believed to have died, a development health officials have
attributed to malnutrition, anemia and inadequate child health facilities.
Health experts caution
that the official data likely does not tell the full story, with many believing
that both cases and deaths have likely been underreported in some countries.
(GRAPHIC: Tracking the
spread of the novel coronavirus –
http://graphics.reuters.com/CHINA-HEALTH-MAP/0100B59S39E/index.html)
(Reporting
by Jane Wardell in Sydney and Cate Cadell in Beijing; Editing by Tiffany Wu and
Daniel Wallis)
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