Global coronavirus death toll passes one million

The virus has claimed one million lives since it first emerged in China late last year.
The virus has claimed one million lives since it first emerged in China late last year.

The global death toll from the new coronavirus, which emerged less than a year ago in China and has swept across the world, passed 1 million on Sunday.

World sports, live entertainment and international travel stopped as fans, audiences and tourists were forced to stay at home, kept inside by strict measures imposed to curb the virus spread.

Drastic controls that put half of humanity -- more than four billion people -- under some form of lockdown by April at first slowed its pace, but since restrictions were eased cases have soared again.



On Sunday the disease had claimed 1,000,009 victims from 33,018,877 recorded infections, according to an AFP tally using official sources.

The United States has the highest death toll with more than 200,000 fatalities followed by Brazil, India, Mexico and Britain.


With scientists still racing to find a working vaccine, governments are again forced into an uneasy balancing act: Virus controls slow the spread of the disease, but they hurt already reeling economies and businesses.



Europe, hit hard by the first wave, is now facing another surge in cases, with Paris, London and Madrid all forced to introduce controls to slow cases threatening to overload hospitals.


Mid-September saw a record rise in cases in most regions and the World Health Organization has warned virus deaths could even double to 2 million without more global collective action.

"One million is a terrible number and we need to reflect on that before we start considering a second million," the WHO's emergencies director Michael Ryan told reporters on Friday.

"Are we prepared collectively to do what it takes to avoid that number?

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Vocabulary

  • avoid: to stay away from a place; to try to prevent something from happening - หลีกเลี่ยง
  • collectively: involving all the members of a group - โดยรวม
  • curb: to control or limit something - จำกัดขอบเขต, ควบคุม
  • drastic: having a very big effect - มีผลกระทบอย่างใหญ่หลวง
  • economy: the relationship between production, trade and the supply of money in a particular country or region - เศรษฐกิจ
  • fatality: a death caused by an illness, accident, crime or war - การเสียชีวิต
  • humanity: people in general - คนทั่วไป, มนุษย์โลก
  • measures (noun): actions taken to solve a particular problem - มาตรการ
  • soar: to rise very quickly to a high level - มีความหวังสูง,พุ่งพรวดขึ้น
  • surge: a sudden increase in something - การเพิ่มขึ้นอย่างรวดเร็ว
  • vaccine: a substance which contains a form that is not harmful of a virus and which is given to a person or animal to prevent them from getting the disease which the virus causes - วัคซีน
  • victims : people who are killed injured or harmed in some way from an accident, natural disaster, crime, etc. - เหยื่อผู้เคราะห์ร้าย

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