Worldwide COVID-19 death toll tops 6 million

The global COVID-19 death toll surpassed 6 million on Monday, marking another grim milestone as the pandemic enters its third year.

The deaths were reported by Johns Hopkins University’s Coronavirus Resource Center, which noted that there had been over 250,000 deaths globally in the past 28 days.

The data also showed that there have been over 446 million cases worldwide throughout the pandemic, including over 50.7 million in the past 28 days.

Death rates remain high in Poland, Hungary, Romania and other Eastern European countries as people take in thousands of fleeing refugees amid the Russian invasion of Ukraine. 

In the U.S., where vaccines are widely available, the death toll throughout the entirety of the pandemic stands at 958,621 as of Monday.

In some parts of the globe, cases are still surging.

Experts in Hong Kong, for example, have said about 15 percent of the city’s 7.4 million residents have tested positive as the city prepares to undergo mass COVID-19 testing amid a spiking death toll. 

But deaths are now largely seen among people who are unvaccinated against the virus.

“This is a disease of the unvaccinated — look what is happening in Hong Kong right now, the health system is being overwhelmed,” Tikki Pang, the former director of research policy and cooperation with the World Health Organization, told The Associated Press.

“The large majority of the deaths and the severe cases are in the unvaccinated, vulnerable segment of the population,” Pang added.

Earlier this month, data from the World Health Organization showed that both cases and deaths were down globally by 16 percent and 10 percent, respectively.