PARIS, March 16, 2021 (BSS/AFP) – The number of deaths from Covid-19
across Europe passed 900,000 on Tuesday, according to an AFP tally of
official figures provided by health authorities.
As of 0845 GMT, the 52 countries and territories of the region — which
includes Russia and Turkey — had officially registered 900,185 coronavirus
deaths since the outbreak emerged in China in December 2019, out of a total
of 40,083,433 confirmed cases.
This makes Europe the deadliest region, ahead of Latin America and the
Caribbean (721,581 deaths), Canada and the United States (558,110 deaths) and
Asia (263,250).
Last week Europe saw an average of 3,000 Covid deaths a day, a 2.3
percent drop on the previous week.
For a month now the region has seen less than 4,000 daily deaths — a
figure which it had been surpassing since November — with a grim new record,
5,700 deaths in 24 hours, reached at the end of January.
The total number of infections in Europe since the start of the pandemic
passed 40 million on Monday.
Britain is the region’s worst-hit country with a total of 125,580 deaths
for 4,263,527 cases, followed by Italy (102,499 deaths, 3,238,394 cases),
Russia (92,937 deaths, 4,409,438 cases), France (90,788 deaths, 4,078,133
cases) and Germany (73,656 deaths, 2,581,329 cases).
Together, these five countries represent more than half of Europe’s
total coronavirus deaths.
Relative to the size of its population, the Czech Republic is the
country with the highest death toll in Europe with 218 deaths per 100,000
people, followed by Belgium (194), Slovenia (189), Britain (185) and
Montenegro (180).
These figures are based on daily tolls provided by health authorities in
each country and exclude later re-evaluations by statistical organisations
based on excess deaths, as has happened in Russia, Spain and Britain.
Globally, more than 120 million Covid-19 infections have been registered
during the pandemic, leading to nearly 2.66 million deaths worldwide.