Approximately 777 million people have contracted Covid-19 since the virus emerged nearly five years ago, the World Health Organisation (WHO) reported on Tuesday.
More than seven million of those infected have died. The SARS-CoV-2 virus continues to spread widely, without clear seasonality, infecting a large number of people.
The first infections were detected in December 2019 in Wuhan, China. Since then, 776.8 million cases have been confirmed worldwide. Most infections have been recorded in the United States (103 million), China (99.4 million), and India (45 million). In Belgium, 4.9 million people have had coronavirus infections, resulting in 34,300 deaths since 2020.
Over the past five years, more than seven million people across 234 countries have died from the effects of Covid-19. Most of these deaths occurred in 2020, 2021, and 2022. During the most recent reporting period, from 14 October to 10 November, 27 countries reported around 3,000 additional deaths due to the virus.
Vaccination remains crucial in the fight against Covid-19. Since vaccines were rolled out, 13.64 billion doses have been administered. This year, 39.2 million people in 90 countries received a vaccine dose.
These figures only include formally confirmed infections and deaths officially attributed to the disease. Therefore, the true numbers are likely higher.
