World surpasses 5M COVID-19 deaths

The coronavirus death toll around the world surpassed 5 million on Friday, according to Reuters’s tally.

Around the world, an average of 8,000 deaths a day were reported, according to the outlet. However, it noted that the global death rate has slowed in recent weeks.

Reuters reported that it took over a year to accumulate 2.5 million deaths, but it took under eight months to accumulate the second 2.5 million deaths.

The world reached this milestone the same day that the United States, which has the highest coronavirus death toll of any country, surpassed 700,000 deaths.

According to Reuters, Russia recorded its largest single-day death toll on Friday, with 887 coronavirus-related deaths.

The news comes as the world grapples with the rise of the rapidly spreading delta variant. Maria Van Kerkhove, the World Health Organization’s technical lead on COVID-19, said last month that the variant had become “prominent worldwide.”

“If delta is identified or starts to circulate in a country where there’s beta, in South Africa for example, it has quickly replaced the variants there,” she said.

The U.S. and other wealthier nations are beginning to give booster vaccine shots amid the delta variant; however, the WHO called for a moratorium on boosters so that people in developing nations can get initial doses.

Only 45.4 percent of the world’s population has received at least one dose of a coronavirus vaccine, according to Our World Data.

Overall, there’s been more than 234 million cases globally since the pandemic began, with 14.3 million being reported in the past 28 days, according to Johns Hopkins University. Approximately 6.3 billion coronavirus vaccine doses have also been administered.