Confirmed deaths In this section
• What is the total number of confirmed deaths around the world?
• What is the country with the highest number of deaths per population
• What is percentage of the population is affected by covid
• Cumulative confirmed deaths per million people
• What is th continents with the highest death count per population?
Three points on confirmed death figures to keep in mind All three points are true for all currently available international data sources on COVID-19 deaths:
• The actual death toll from COVID-19 is likely to be higher than the number of confirmed deaths – this is due to limited testing and problems in the attribution of the cause of death. The difference between reported confirmed deaths and actual deaths varies by country.
• How COVID-19 deaths are recorded may differ between countries (e.g., some countries may only count hospital deaths, whilst others also include deaths in homes).
• The death figures on a given date do not necessarily show the number of new deaths on that day, but the deaths reported on that day. Since reporting can vary significantly from day to day – irrespectively of any actual variation of deaths – it is helpful to view the seven-day rolling average of the daily figures as we do in the chart here.
Why adjust for the size of the population?
Differences in the population size between countries are often large, and the COVID-19 death count in more populous countries tends to be higher. Because of this it can be insightful to know how the number of confirmed deaths in a country compares to the number of people who live there, especially when comparing across countries.
For instance, if 1,000 people died in Iceland, out of a population of about 340,000, that would have a far bigger impact than the same number dying in the United States, with its population of 331 million.1 This difference in impact is clear when comparing deaths per million people of each country’s population – in this example it would be roughly 3 deaths/million people in the US compared to a staggering 2,941 deaths/million people in Iceland.