Daily US Times: More than 5 million people are known to have died of Covid-19 across the world, 19 months since the pandemic began, Johns Hopkins University data reveals.

Vaccines against the virus have slowed the death rate, but some health experts say the true toll could be far higher.

The milestone comes amid warnings from health officials that deaths and infections in some places are rising for the first time in months.

Nearly 250 million infections have been recorded worldwide.

The World Health Organization (WHO) estimates the Covid-19 pandemic’s real global death toll could be two to three times higher than official records.

In the United States, more than 745,800 people have died, making it the country with the highest number of recorded deaths.

It is followed by Brazil, with 607,824 deaths, and India, with 458,437. But health experts believe these numbers are under reported, partly because of deaths at home and those in rural communities.

It has taken the world longer to reach the latest 1 million deaths than the previous two.

It took over 110 days to go from four million deaths to five million, which is compared to just under 90 days to rise from three million to four million.

While Covid-19 vaccines have helped reduce the fatality rate, the WHO warned last week that the pandemic was “far from over”.

Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the WHO director-general, pointed to a rise in cases in Europe, where countries with low vaccination rates are seeing soaring infections and deaths.

Russia, last week, recorded its highest number of daily cases and deaths since the start of the pandemic. Russia accounts for 10% of the last million deaths recorded globally.

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