The World Health Organization (WHO) Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus announced on May 5, 2023 that COVID-19 was no longer considered a public health emergency of international concern. This status was established on January 30, 2020, and less than a month and a half later, the WHO declared the new coronavirus a pandemic. Despite the lifting of the emergency, Ghebreyesus stressed that the threat posed by the virus remains: over the past three years, cases and deaths have continued to be registered around the world.
The emergence of the new coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2) was first identified in Wuhan, China, in December 2019 and within months spread around the world, forcing countries to introduce various restrictions and begin developing vaccines.
According to the WHO, by the time the state of emergency was lifted in May 2023, there had been 764.9 million cases of COVID-19 recorded worldwide. Over the next three years, this figure increased by only 2%, to 779.2 million.
From January 2020 to May 2023, the WHO recorded 6.93 million confirmed deaths as a result to COVID-19. Over the next three years, this number increased by 2.6%, reaching 7,111,356 (as of April 12, 2026). While the largest increase in coronavirus cases occurred in early and late 2022, the largest waves of deaths were observed in late January 2021 (over 103,000 deaths per week) and in May of the same year (nearly 96,000).
Of the 7.11 million confirmed coronavirus deaths, nearly 3.1 million have been in the Americas, according to the WHO. Europe is second with 2.3 million deaths. The fewest deaths, 175,500, have been recorded in Africa.
Considering that countries vary in population size, data adjusted for demographics is more representative. This approach reveals that the top five countries with the highest death rates per million inhabitants are Peru (6,603 as of February 22, 2026), Bulgaria (5,681), North Macedonia (5,429), Bosnia and Herzegovina (5,123) and Hungary (5,072).
