The Countries With the Highest COVID-19 Death Toll

Nearly six years after the first cases of Covid-19 were identified, the Global Preparedness Monitoring Board (GPMB) recently published a report underlying the necessity to transform health security in order to better protect the world against future pandemics. The GPMB emphasises the profound impact of such global health events, which can disrupt economies, societies and governance systems. Better preparedness in the face of potential new pandemics would also lessen the death toll associated with future outbreaks: according to the WHO, close to 7 million deaths from coronavirus were recorded worldwide.

As this chart shows, over 1.1 million of those deaths were recorded in the U.S. alone, making it the country with the highest death toll. Brazil, South America's most populous nation, officially reported over 700,000 deaths. Looking at deaths per 100,000 inhabitants shows how hard Peru in particular was hit. With 659 deaths per 100,000 inhabitants, the country's population-adjusted death toll is the highest in the world.

These figures, however, only take into account officially recorded deaths: the WHO estimates that the Covid-19 pandemic could have caused up to 36 million deaths worldwide.