In Ukraine, only 17% of the adult population is fully vaccinated in Armenia, only 7%. Now, the virus is pummeling Russia, Ukraine and other parts of Eastern Europe, especially where rumours, misinformation and distrust in government have hobbled vaccination efforts. Hot spots have shifted over the 22 months since the outbreak began, turning different places on the world map red. The staggering figure is almost certainly an undercount because of limited testing and people dying at home without medical attention, especially in poor parts of the world, such as India.

Globally, Covid-19 is now the third leading cause of death, after heart disease and stroke. It rivals the number of people killed in battles among nations since 1950, according to estimates from the Peace Research Institute Oslo. What do we have to do to protect ourselves so we don’t get to another 5 million? The death toll, as tallied by Johns Hopkins University, is about equal to the populations of Los Angeles and San Francisco combined. This is a defining moment in our lifetime, said Dr Albert Ko, an infectious disease specialist at the Yale School of Public Health.

The US alone has recorded over 740,000 lives lost, more than any other nation. Together, the United States, the European Union, Britain and Brazil all upper-middle- or high-income countries account for one-eighth of the world’s population but nearly half of all reported deaths. WASHINGTON: The global death toll from Covid-19 topped five million on Monday, less than two years into a crisis that has not only devastated poor countries but also humbled wealthy ones with first-rate health care systems.

Dawn of war map