APJPH Editors Blog: World Daily Deaths

The virus continues on its unrelenting course throughout the world. With no vaccine likely to become available in the near future, public health measures are all that we have to fight it.  Premature relaxation of public health standards has resulted in renewed outbreaks.  The alternative is to allow the spread until herd immunity is achieved. This would result in 5.6-6.4 billion cases resulting in perhaps 90 million deaths.  In addition, there would be untold misery from post-viral syndromes.  This is a ridiculous scenario.  Public health restrictions must remain (travel limits, social distancing, hygiene, facemasks, quarantine, contract tracing etc).

The graph below shows the importance of the COVID-19 epidemic to public health.  As is evident from the graph, COVID-19 has fluctuated between the 4^th and 8^th most common cause of death worldwide. These deaths may be an underestimate and there is a margin of error around all of these figures. The USA peaked at 2750 deaths in one day in April and is now averaging around 700 deaths per day. This is approximately three times the world-wide death rate reflecting the severity of their problem.

Daily Causes of Death – world total

Sources: WHO Statistics, Worldometer, Johns Hopkins Corona Virus Resource Centre 

Colin Binns, MBBS, PhD
Editor-in-Chief, Asia-Pacific Journal of Public Health
School of Public Health, Curtin University, Perth, Australia

Wah Yun Low, PhD
Managing Editor, Asia-Pacific Journal of Public Health
President, Asia-Pacific Academic Consortium for Public Health
Deputy Executive Director, Asia Europe Institute
University of Malaya, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

Victor Hoe Chee Wai, MBBS, PhD
Webmaster, Asia-Pacific Academic Consortium for Public Health
Department of Social and Preventive Medicine, Faculty of Medicine
University of Malaya, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia