Global Covid-19 deaths pass 1 million with no sign of slowing

The global death toll from coronavirus has passed one million.

The world is nine months into a crisis that has devastated economies, pitted science against politics and forced all of us to change the way we live, learn and work.

The grim milestone, recorded by Johns Hopkins University, is almost certainly an underestimate due to inadequate testing and suspected concealment of true numbers by some countries.

The numbers continue to mount.

Nearly 5,000 deaths are reported each day. Parts of Europe are being engulfed by a second wave, and South America is recording more new cases than ever.

Experts say the US, which accounts for about 205,000 deaths, or one out of five worldwide, is very far from emerging from the crisis despite what some politicians would have their people believe, and may be heading for its own second wave.

Twelve countries claim to have had no cases. One is North Korea, another Turkmenistan, and the rest are all remote Pacific islands.

No other country remains spared by the virus, and yet the African continent has not been as badly hit as some experts predicted.

Another continent, Antarctica, is the only part of the world so far untouched. Research stations and their crews there are determined to keep it that way through extensive isolation rules and protocols.

Anyone coming to Antarctica is now quarantined for 14 days because if Covid-19 reaches the Antarctic it would be devastating.

Put simply, there’s nowhere else to go.