WorldWide Grief }} A Virus Marches Across The Planet Leaving Casualties Everywhere

AP PHOTO/ANDRE PENNER

Worldwide grief: Deaths from virus surpass 1 million; A viral march across the planet, tracked by a map in motion

 

The global death toll from the coronavirus has eclipsed 1 million. 

 

The bleak milestone, recorded by Johns Hopkins University, comes nine months into a crisis that has devastated the global economy, tested world leaders’ resolve, pitted science against politics and forced multitudes to change the way they live, learn and work, Adam Geller and Rishabh R. Jain report. 

 

The virus has also spread untold misery. One million is greater than the population of Jerusalem or Austin, Texas. It is more than four times the number of people killed by the 2004 tsunami in the Indian Ocean. 

 

Even then, the toll is almost certainly a vast undercount because of inadequate or inconsistent testing and reporting. And more people are dying daily, shrouding families and communities in grief in almost every corner of the world. 

 

The Spread: A new AP interactive map of the virus’ spread — represented by the lives it has claimed — blends data and geography in a way that forces us to see what has happened to the world. And what is still happening to it. Like so many things in the world, it started small. At first, the map shows only one splash of color: China, the place where the coronavirus silently began its march.

 

As it began to move around, the map evolved. Month by month, week by week, day by day, the coronavirus spread. Pandemic was declared. Hospitals girded. Cities and countries, shut down. The world changed so fast that its people could barely keep up,

reports AP National Writer Ted Anthony. 

TAMER FAKAHANY
DEPUTY DIRECTOR - GLOBAL NEWS COORDINATION, LONDON

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