Global death toll from COVID-19 tops 2M amid vaccine rollout

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A woman wearing a face mask asks for alms as people rush to catch the train outside the Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj train terminus in Mumbai, India, Monday, Nov. 9, 2020. The global death toll from COVID-19 has topped 2 million. The milestone was reached just over a year after the coronavirus was first detected in the Chinese city of Wuhan. It is about equal to the population of Brussels, Mecca, Minsk or Vienna. It took eight months to hit 1 million lives lost. It took less than four months after that to reach the next million. (AP Photo/Rafiq Maqbool)

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A nurse rests her knees on the floor as she looks at a computer screen during the day shift at the COVID-19 ICU of the La Timone hospital in Marseille, southern France, Thursday, Nov. 12, 2020. (AP Photo/Daniel Cole)

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A medic works with corona patients in a hospital in Idlib, Syria, Saturday, Nov. 14, 2020. At one of two coronavirus hospitals in Syria’s rebel-held Idlib province, overwhelmed medical staff tend to patients drifting in and out of consciousness. As confirmed case numbers rise to as many as 500 a day, so does the demand for beds in the intensive care ward (AP Photo/Ghaith Alsayed)

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Medical workers and patients are seen in the treatment hall of a temporary hospital for coronavirus patients in the Krylatskoye Ice Palace in Moscow, Russia, Wednesday, Nov. 18, 2020. The resurgence of the outbreak has swept the Russia since September, with the number of daily new cases spiking from roughly 5,000 in early September to over 22,000 this week. (AP Photo/Pavel Golovkin)

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Head nurse Mirco Perruzza, right, and nurse Edoardo Lucci help a patient with coronavirus to wear a CPAP (Continuous Positive Air Pressure) helmet in the ICU of the ICC Casalpalocco COVID-19 spoke hospital in Rome, Wednesday, Nov. 25, 2020. (AP Photo/Domenico Stinellis)

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Vivian Zayas holds onto the walker once belonging to her recently deceased mother Ana Martinez while her family prays before Thanksgiving dinner, Thursday, Nov. 26, 2020, in Deer Park, N.Y. The global death toll from COVID-19 has topped 2 million. The milestone was reached just over a year after the coronavirus was first detected in the Chinese city of Wuhan. It took eight months to hit 1 million lives lost. It took less than four months after that to reach the next million. (AP Photo/John Minchillo)

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Ultra-orthodox Jewish men gather around the body of Rabbi Aharon David Hadash, the spiritual leader of the Mir Yeshiva, a prominent religious seminary, during his funeral in Jerusalem, Thursday, Dec. 3, 2020. The mass ceremony took place despite coronavirus restrictions limiting the size of funerals. Hadash, who was 90 was hospitalized two months ago after he tested positive for COVID-19. (AP Photo/Oded Balilty)

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A Sri Lankan Christian family grieves as municipal cemetery workers carry the body of their family member who died of COVID-19 for cremation in Colombo, Sri Lanka, Friday, Dec. 11, 2020. (AP Photo/Eranga Jayawardena)

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A droplet falls from a syringe after a health care worker was injected with the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine at Women & Infants Hospital in Providence, R.I., Tuesday, Dec. 15, 2020. (AP Photo/David Goldman)

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Clerics wearing protective clothing prepare the body of a man who died from COVID-19 for a funeral at a cemetery in the outskirts of the city of Ghaemshahr, in northern Iran, Saturday, Dec. 19, 2020. (AP Photo/Ebrahim Noroozi)

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A nurse holds a 11-day-old baby boy infected with COVID-19 just four days after his birth at the intensive care unit of the Prof. Dr. Feriha Oz Emergency Hospital, after feeding him in Istanbul, Saturday, Dec. 19, 2020. (AP Photo/Emrah Gurel)

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Mortuary workers take off their protective clothing at the entrance of a building decorated with a Christmas tree, after removing the body of person who is suspected of dying from COVID-19 in Barcelona, Spain, Wednesday, Dec. 23, 2020. (AP Photo/Emilio Morenatti)

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Álvaro Puig Moreno watches television while eating a his Christmas Eve dinner at his home in Barcelona, Spain, Thursday, Dec. 24, 2020. The global death toll from COVID-19 has topped 2 million. The milestone was reached just over a year after the coronavirus was first detected in the Chinese city of Wuhan. It is about equal to the population of Brussels, Mecca, Minsk or Vienna. It took eight months to hit 1 million lives lost. It took less than four months after that to reach the next million. (AP Photo/Emilio Morenatti)

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Freshly dug graves powdered with snow are seen at the Butovskoye cemetery, which serves as one of the burial grounds for those who died of the coronavirus, in Moscow, Russia, Thursday, Dec. 31, 2020. (AP Photo/Dmitry Serebryakov)

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Motorists wait in lines to take a coronavirus test in a parking lot at Dodger Stadium, Monday, Jan. 4, 2021, in Los Angeles. The global death toll from COVID-19 has topped 2 million. The milestone was reached just over a year after the coronavirus was first detected in the Chinese city of Wuhan. It is about equal to the population of Brussels, Mecca, Minsk or Vienna. It took eight months to hit 1 million lives lost. It took less than four months after that to reach the next million. (AP Photo/Ringo H.W. Chiu)

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Family members, reflected in the window, wave goodbye to nursing home resident Barbara Farrior, 85, at the end of their visit at the Hebrew Home at Riverdale on Thanksgiving, Thursday, Nov. 26, 2020, in New York. The home offered drive-up visits for families of residents struggling with celebrating the holiday alone. (AP Photo/Eduardo Munoz Alvarez)

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Two nurses put a ventilator on a patient in a COVID-19 unit at St. Joseph Hospital in Orange, Calif. Thursday, Jan. 7, 2021. California health authorities reported Thursday a record two-day total of 1,042 coronavirus deaths as many hospitals strain under unprecedented caseloads. (AP Photo/Jae C. Hong)

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Parishioners attend the Orthodox Christmas Mass in the Holy Trinity church in Iltsi village, Ivano-Frankivsk region of Western Ukraine, Thursday, Jan. 7, 2021. Although Ukraine is struggling to contain the coronavirus pandemic that has inundated its overburdened medical system with patients, Orthodox Christmas celebrations on Thursday occurred widely without masks or social distancing. (AP Photo/Evgeniy Maloletka)

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Coffins are stored in hallways of the crematorium in Meissen, Germany, Monday, Jan. 11, 2021. The crematorium would typically have 70 to 100 caskets on site at this time of year, now it has 300 bodies waiting to be cremated and more are brought to the crematorium every day. (AP Photo/Markus Schreiber)

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Care home resident Joan Potts, aged 102, is seen through a viewing screen installed for residents to safely receive visits from family members, as she speaks to Dr. Jane Allen after receiving her first dose of the Oxford/AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine at the Wimbledon Beaumont Care Home, run by Barchester, in south west London, Wednesday, Jan. 13, 2021, during England’s third national lockdown since the coronavirus outbreak began. (AP Photo/Matt Dunham)

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A mortuary worker transports the body of a COVID-19 victim on a stretcher at the morgue of a hospital in Barcelona, Spain, Thursday, Nov. 5, 2020. After successfully bringing the daily death count down from over 900 in March to single digits by July, Spain has seen a steady uptick that brought deaths back to over 200 a day this month. With that relapse, the body collectors have returned to making the rounds of hospitals, homes and care facilities. (AP Photo/Emilio Morenatti)

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A patient with coronavirus breathes wearing an oxygen mask in an intensive care unit at the hospital in Stryi, western Ukraine, on Tuesday Sep. 29 2020. The global death toll from COVID-19 has topped 2 million. The milestone was reached just over a year after the coronavirus was first detected in the Chinese city of Wuhan. It is about equal to the population of Brussels, Mecca, Minsk or Vienna. It took eight months to hit 1 million lives lost. It took less than four months after that to reach the next million. (AP Photo/Evgeniy Maloletka)

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Corazona Pena’s body lies wrapped in plastic by a Peruvian COVID-19 specialized government team in Pucallpa, in Peru’s Ucayali region, Tuesday, Sept. 29, 2020. The global death toll from COVID-19 has topped 2 million. It took eight months to hit 1 million lives lost. It took less than four months after that to reach the next million. (AP Photo/Rodrigo Abd)

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Residents, some wearing masks, ride on a ferry in Wuhan on Thursday, Oct. 22, 2020. The global death toll from COVID-19 has topped 2 million. The milestone was reached just over a year after the coronavirus was first detected in the Chinese city of Wuhan. It is about equal to the population of Brussels, Mecca, Minsk or Vienna. It took eight months to hit 1 million lives lost. It took less than four months after that to reach the next million. (AP Photo/Ng Han Guan)

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In this Monday, April 6, 2020, Aurelia reacts next to her husband after he died of a respiratory illness at their home in Barcelona, Spain during a visit by medics. The global death toll from COVID-19 has topped 2 million. The milestone was reached just over a year after the coronavirus was first detected in the Chinese city of Wuhan. It is about equal to the population of Brussels, Mecca, Minsk or Vienna. It took eight months to hit 1 million lives lost. It took less than four months after that to reach the next million. (AP Photo/Emilio Morenatti)

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A patient infected with COVID-19 is treated in one of the intensive care units (ICU) at the Severo Ochoa hospital in Leganes, outskirts of Madrid, Spain, Friday, Oct. 9, 2020. Spain has become the first western Europe to accumulate more than 1 million confirmed infections as the country of 47 million inhabitants struggles to contain a resurgence of the coronavirus. (AP Photo/Bernat Armangue)

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Police clash with protesters in downtown Barcelona, Spain, Friday, Oct. 30, 2020. Clashes have erupted in a central Barcelona square between anti-riot police and hundreds who had gathered to protest the mandatory closure of bars, restaurants and other businesses in the latest effort to rein in on coronavirus outbreaks. (AP Photo/Emilio Morenatti)

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Nurse Ginevra Fattori gets ready before entering the sub-intensive care unit of the San Filippo Neri hospital in Rome, Thursday, Oct. 29, 2020. The global death toll from COVID-19 has topped 2 million. The milestone was reached just over a year after the coronavirus was first detected in the Chinese city of Wuhan. (AP Photo/Alessandra Tarantino)

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Cemetery workers carry the remains of 89-year-old Abilio Ribeiro, who died of the new coronavirus, to bury at the Nossa Senhora Aparecida cemetery in Manaus, Amazonas state, Brazil, Wednesday, Jan. 6, 2021. Manaus declared on Jan. 5 a 180-day state of emergency due to a surge of new cases of coronavirus. (AP Photo/Edmar Barros)

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Wearing masks and plastic gloves amid the spread of the new coronavirus, girls raise her hands during class in Havana, Cuba, Monday, Nov. 2, 2020. Tens of thousands of school children returned to class Monday in Havana for the first time since the coronavirus pandemic prompted authorities to shut the island down in April. (AP Photo/Ramon Espinosa)

By The Associated Press

The global death toll from COVID-19 topped 2 million Friday as vaccines developed at breakneck speed are being rolled out around the world in an all-out campaign to vanquish the threat.

The milestone was reached just over a year after the coronavirus was first detected in the Chinese city of Wuhan.

The number of dead, compiled by Johns Hopkins University, is about equal to the population of Brussels, Mecca, Minsk or Vienna. It is roughly equivalent to the population of the Cleveland metropolitan area or the entire state of Nebraska.

While the count is based on figures supplied by government agencies around the world, the real toll is believed to be significantly higher, in part because of inadequate testing and the many fatalities that were inaccurately attributed to other causes, especially early in the outbreak.

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It took eight months to hit 1 million dead. It took less than four months after that to reach the next million.

“Behind this terrible number are names and faces — the smile that will now only be a memory, the seat forever empty at the dinner table, the room that echoes with the silence of a loved one,” said U.N. Secretary General Antonio Guterres. He said the toll “has been made worse by the absence of a global coordinated effort.”

“Science has succeeded, but solidarity has failed,” he said.

In wealthy countries including the United States, Britain, Israel, Canada and Germany, millions of citizens have already been given some measure of protection with at least one dose of vaccine developed with revolutionary speed and quickly authorized for use.

But elsewhere, immunization drives have barely gotten off the ground. Many experts are predicting another year of loss and hardship in places like Iran, India, Mexico and Brazil, which together account for about a quarter of the world’s deaths.