THE TOTAL number of people worldwide who have died as a result of Covid-19 has passed one million.
The count, conducted by John Hopkins University, officially hit seven figures on Tuesday morning, nearly 10 months after the outbreak began in Wuhan, China.
UN Secretary-General António Guterres called it a "mind-numbing" figure and "an agonising milestone".
"Yet we must never lose sight of each and every individual life," he said in a video message.
"They were fathers and mothers, wives and husbands, brothers and sisters, friends and colleagues. The pain has been multiplied by the savageness of this disease."
Despite the figures, experts claims that the actual death toll is likely to be a lot higher, due to the reasonable probability of thousands of deaths around the world being mis-diagnosed, inadequate testing and reporting and suspected concealment by some countries.
Coronavirus has spread to 188 countries overall with more than 32 million confirmed cases.
Lockdowns and other measures to try to stop the virus spreading have thrown many economies into recession and have cost millions of people around the world their jobs and livelihoods.
Covid-19 has changed the way the millions of people live, impacting on travel, socialising and dozens of other facets of everyday life.
The United States has the world's highest death count, with over 205,000 fatalities, followed by Brazil on 141,700 and India with 95,500.
Dr Howard Markel, of the University of Michigan, said of the one million death count: "It's not just a number, it's human beings. It's people we love."
