As of May 2, 2023, the outbreak of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) had been confirmed in almost every country in the world. The virus had infected over 687 million people worldwide, and the number of deaths had reached almost 6.87 million. The most severely affected countries include the U.S., India, and Brazil.

COVID-19: background information COVID-19 is a novel coronavirus that had not previously been identified in humans. The first case was detected in the Hubei province of China at the end of December 2019. The virus is highly transmissible and coughing and sneezing are the most common forms of transmission, which is similar to the outbreak of the SARS coronavirus that began in 2002 and was thought to have spread via cough and sneeze droplets expelled into the air by infected persons.

Naming the coronavirus disease Coronaviruses are a group of viruses that can be transmitted between animals and people, causing illnesses that may range from the common cold to more severe respiratory syndromes. In February 2020, the International Committee on Taxonomy of Viruses and the World Health Organization announced official names for both the virus and the disease it causes: SARS-CoV-2 and COVID-19, respectively. The name of the disease is derived from the words corona, virus, and disease, while the number 19 represents the year that it emerged.

2019 Novel Coronavirus COVID-19 (2019-nCoV) Visual Dashboard and Map:
https://www.arcgis.com/apps/opsdashboard/index.html#/bda7594740fd40299423467b48e9ecf6

• Confirmed Cases by Country/Region/Sovereignty
• Confirmed Cases by Province/State/Dependency
• Deaths
• Recovered

Downloadable data:
https://github.com/CSSEGISandData/COVID-19

Additional Information about the Visual Dashboard:
https://systems.jhu.edu/research/public-health/ncov

The new SARS-like coronavirus has spread around China since its outbreak in Wuhan - the capital of central China’s Hubei province. As of June 7, 2022, there were 2,785,848 active cases with symptoms in Greater China. The pandemic has caused a significant impact in the country's economy.

Fast-moving epidemic

In Wuhan, over 3.8 thousand deaths were registered in the heart of the outbreak. The total infection number surged on February 12, 2020 in Hubei province. After a change in official methodology for diagnosing and counting cases, thousands of new cases were added to the total figure. There is little knowledge about how the virus that originated from animals transferred to humans. While human-to-human transmission has been confirmed, other transmission routes through aerosol and fecal-oral are also possible. The deaths from the current virus COVID-19 (formally known as 2019-nCoV) has surpassed the toll from the SARS epidemic of 2002 and 2003.

Key moments in the Chinese coronavirus timeline

The doctor in Wuhan, Dr. Li Wenliang, who first warned about the new strain of coronavirus was silenced by the police. It was announced on February 7, 2020 that he died from the effects of the coronavirus infection. His death triggered a national backlash over freedom of speech on Chinese social media. On March 18, 2020, the Chinese government reported no new domestically transmissions for the first time after a series of quarantine and social distancing measures had been implemented. On March 31, 2020, the National Health Commission (NHC) in China started reporting the infection number of symptom-free individuals who tested positive for coronavirus. Before that, asymptomatic cases had not been included in the Chinese official count. China lifted ten-week lockdown on Wuhan on April 8, 2020. Daily life was returning slowly back to normal in the country. On April 17, 2020, health authorities in Wuhan revised its death toll, adding some 1,290 fatalities in its total count.

Objective Daily COVID-19 data reported by the World Health Organization (WHO) may provide the basis for political ad hoc decisions including travel restrictions. Data reported by countries, however, is heterogeneous and metrics to evaluate its quality are scarce. In this work, we analyzed COVID-19 case counts provided by WHO and developed tools to evaluate country-specific reporting behaviors. Methods In this retrospective cross-sectional study, COVID-19 data reported daily to WHO from 3rd January 2020 until 14th June 2021 were analyzed. We proposed the concepts of binary reporting rate and relative reporting behavior and performed descriptive analyses for all countries with these metrics. We developed a score to evaluate the consistency of incidence and binary reporting rates. Further, we performed spectral clustering of the binary reporting rate and relative reporting behavior to identify salient patterns in these metrics. Results Our final analysis included 222 countries and regions...., Data collection COVID-19 data was downloaded from WHO. Using a public repository, we have added the countries' full names to the WHO data set using the two-letter abbreviations for each country to merge both data sets. The provided COVID-19 data covers January 2020 until June 2021. We uploaded the final data set used for the analyses of this paper. Data processing We processed data using a Jupyter Notebook with a Python kernel and publically available external libraries. This upload contains the required Jupyter Notebook (reporting_behavior.ipynb) with all analyses and some additional work, a README, and the conda environment yml (env.yml)., Any text editor including Microsoft Excel and their free alternatives can open the uploaded CSV file. Any web browser and some code editors (like the freely available Visual Studio Code) can show the uploaded Jupyter Notebook if the required Python environment is set up correctly.

Daily updates of Covid-19 Global Excess Deaths from the Economist's GitHub repository: https://github.com/TheEconomist/covid-19-the-economist-global-excess-deaths-model

Interpreting estimates

Estimating excess deaths for every country every day since the pandemic began is a complex and difficult task. Rather than being overly confident in a single number, limited data means that we can often only give a very very wide range of plausible values. Focusing on central estimates in such cases would be misleading: unless ranges are very narrow, the 95% range should be reported when possible. The ranges assume that the conditions for bootstrap confidence intervals are met. Please see our tracker page and methodology for more information.

New variants

The Omicron variant, first detected in southern Africa in November 2021, appears to have characteristics that are different to earlier versions of sars-cov-2. Where this variant is now dominant, this change makes estimates uncertain beyond the ranges indicated. Other new variants may do the same. As more data is incorporated from places where new variants are dominant, predictions improve.

Non-reporting countries

Turkmenistan and the Democratic People's Republic of Korea have not reported any covid-19 figures since the start of the pandemic. They also have not published all-cause mortality data. Exports of estimates for the Democratic People's Republic of Korea have been temporarily disabled as it now issues contradictory data: reporting a significant outbreak through its state media, but zero confirmed covid-19 cases/deaths to the WHO.

Acknowledgements

A special thanks to all our sources and to those who have made the data to create these estimates available. We list all our sources in our methodology. Within script 1, the source for each variable is also given as the data is loaded, with the exception of our sources for excess deaths data, which we detail in on our free-to-read excess deaths tracker as well as on GitHub. The gradient booster implementation used to fit the models is aGTBoost, detailed here.

Calculating excess deaths for the entire world over multiple years is both complex and imprecise. We welcome any suggestions on how to improve the model, be it data, algorithm, or logic. If you have one, please open an issue.

The Economist would also like to acknowledge the many people who have helped us refine the model so far, be it through discussions, facilitating data access, or offering coding assistance. A special thanks to Ariel Karlinsky, Philip Schellekens, Oliver Watson, Lukas Appelhans, Berent Å. S. Lunde, Gideon Wakefield, Johannes Hunger, Carol D'Souza, Yun Wei, Mehran Hosseini, Samantha Dolan, Mollie Van Gordon, Rahul Arora, Austin Teda Atmaja, Dirk Eddelbuettel and Tom Wenseleers.

All coding and data collection to construct these models (and make them update dynamically) was done by Sondre Ulvund Solstad. Should you have any questions about them after reading the methodology, please open an issue or contact him at sondresolstad@economist.com.

Suggested citation The Economist and Solstad, S. (corresponding author), 2021. The pandemic’s true death toll. [online] The Economist. Available at: https://www.economist.com/graphic-detail/coronavirus-excess-deaths-estimates [Accessed ---]. First published in the article "Counting the dead", The Economist, issue 20, 2021.

More and more startups from all sectors and industries are offering their help and expertise to combat the coronavirus pandemic. The graph shows some examples of these startups that offer solutions to monitor, track, and test the novel virus. The startups are ranked by their current funding amounts. BlueDot The Canadian startup uses machine learning to monitor outbreaks of infectious diseases worldwide. The company was able to detect the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) as early as late December and informed its clients on December 30, 2019 about an unusual amount of pneumonia cases in Wuhan, China. This was nine days before the World Health Organization officially flagged the disease as COVID-19. In the past BlueDot has been successful in predicting that the Zika virus would spread to Florida in 2016 and that the Ebola outbreak in 2014 would leave West Africa. Metabiota The artificial intelligence startup provides a database for infectious diseases and a model to detect and forecast high- and low-proability outbreaks and epidemics. The company created a near-term forecasting model of the coronavirus at the end of February, naming China, Japan, Italy, Iran, South Korea, Thailand, United States, Taiwan, Australia, and the Philippines as countries at-risk. NURX, Carbon Health, and EverlyWell The three US-based startups from the healthcare services segment (telehealth, at home testing, services) had started or planned to offer at home test kits for COVID-19 through mail order in the United States. As of March 24, 2020 all of them have stopped offering the tests after a warning was issued from the Food and Drug Administration. Ro Ro is a direct-to-consumer healthcare technology company providing services such as online diagnosis and delivery of medication. The comapny has launched a free digital assessment for COVID-19. The service asks people about their symptoms and, if necessary, connects the user with a doctor for further consultation through a video call. Scanwell Health The California-based startup's main offering is app-based testing and screening for urinary tract infections. It now has announced that it is working on an at-home COVID-19 diagnostic service and that it aims to make the service available in six to eight weeks (as of March 23, 2020). Vocalis Health The Israeli startup is exploring the possibility of using voice-based testing for detecting screening and monitoring COVID-19 symptoms.The company has developed a platform that utilizes artificial intelligence by using voice recordings for health monitoring. The goal is to potentially identify the unique vocal "fingerprint" of COVID-19. For further information about the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, please visit our dedicated Fact and Figures page.

As of June 6, 2022, the novel coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 that originated in Wuhan, the capital of Hubei province in China, had infected over 2.1 million people and killed 14,612 in the country. Hong Kong is currently the region with the highest active cases in China.

From Wuhan to the rest of China

In late December 2019, health authorities in Wuhan detected several pneumonia cases of unknown cause. Most of these patients had links to the Huanan Seafood Market. With Chinese New Year approaching, millions of Chinese migrant workers travelled back to their hometowns for the celebration. Before the start of the travel ban on January 23, around five million people had left Wuhan. By the end of January, the number of infections had surged to over ten thousand. The death toll from the virus exceeded that of the SARS outbreak a few days later. On February 12, thousands more cases were confirmed in Wuhan after an improvement to the diagnosis method, resulting in another sudden surge of confirmed cases. On March 31, 2020, the National Health Commission (NHC) in China announced that it would begin reporting the infection number of symptom-free individuals who tested positive for coronavirus. On April 17, 2020, health authorities in Wuhan revised its death toll, adding 50 percent more fatalities. After quarantine measures were implemented, the country reported no new local coronavirus COVID-19 transmissions for the first time on March 18, 2020.

The overloaded healthcare system

In Wuhan, 28 hospitals were designated to treat coronavirus patients, but the outbreak continued to test China’s disease control system and most of the hospitals were soon fully occupied. To combat the virus, the government announced plans to build a new hospital swiftly. On February 3, 2020, Huoshenshan Hospital was opened to provide an additional 1,300 beds. Due to an extreme shortage of health-care professionals in Wuhan, thousands of medical staff from all over China came voluntarily to the epicenter to offer their support. After no new deaths reported for first time, China lifted ten-week lockdown on Wuhan on April 8, 2020. Daily life was returning slowly back to normal in the country.

As of January 18, 2023, Portugal had the highest COVID-19 vaccination rate in Europe having administered 272.78 doses per 100 people in the country, while Malta had administered 258.49 doses per 100. The UK was the first country in Europe to approve the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine for widespread use and began inoculations on December 8, 2020, and so far have administered 224.04 doses per 100. At the latest data, Belgium had carried out 253.89 doses of vaccines per 100 population. Russia became the first country in the world to authorize a vaccine - named Sputnik V - for use in the fight against COVID-19 in August 2020. As of August 4, 2022, Russia had administered 127.3 doses per 100 people in the country.

The seven-day rate of cases across Europe shows an ongoing perspective of which countries are worst affected by the virus relative to their population. For further information about the coronavirus pandemic, please visit our dedicated Facts and Figures page.

Various economic indicators.

Types of Internships #1. International Internships International internships can last for a maximum of 6 months. In such cases, students from one country to another country can apply for internship programs. Depending upon the company, the program can be on-site or simply remote. #2. Paid Internships Paid internships refer to, experience earned in exchange for a small amount of income. This is generally offered by the companies at the end of the educational year, i.e., in the second or third year. #3. Unpaid Internships These kinds of programs are not designed to pay in exchange for the experience given. They are simply free internships, offering only a better experience of real-world gain knowledge besides education. #4. Virtual Internship Virtual internships have come recently into the market, as pandemics affected all over the world. In such cases, physical attendance is not necessary as it is performed via laptop, PC, call, and other electronic devices. Worldwide Internship Statistics There are many international students, who apply for internships to gain knowledge. Currently, the most chosen countries by international students are the US, the UK, Germany, Canada, and France. #1. The United States of America The US is the second largest country preferred by students to complete their further education. But why choose the US for an internship? As a developed country, the US is full of advanced skills in any kind of industry, be it medicine, marketing, engineering, or even hospitality. Innovation is the base for any business in the US. Therefore, choosing an internship program can be helpful in turning your mind to creativity. Unlike other countries, English is the primary language spoken all over the country. In the United States of America, an intern can earn up to $20.76 per hour on average As per the reports, a person who has gained experience through internships gets a high starting salary from $50,000 to $55,000. Big companies with high tech to work after graduation As of 2023, according to Internship Statistics, the estimated number of paid internships is 4.1 million while 1.64 million is for unpaid ones. You May Also Like To Read Most Expensive Colleges College Dropout Statistics Teacher Statistics College Statistics

In 2023, Singapore dominated the ranking of the world's health and health systems, followed by Japan and South Korea. The health index score is calculated by evaluating various indicators that assess the health of the population, and access to the services required to sustain good health, including health outcomes, health systems, sickness and risk factors, and mortality rates. The health and health system index score of the top ten countries with the best healthcare system in the world ranged between 82 and 86.9, measured on a scale of zero to 100.

Global Health Security Index  Numerous health and health system indexes have been developed to assess various attributes and aspects of a nation's healthcare system. One such measure is the Global Health Security (GHS) index. This index evaluates the ability of 195 nations to identify, assess, and mitigate biological hazards in addition to political and socioeconomic concerns, the quality of their healthcare systems, and their compliance with international finance and standards. In 2021, the United States was ranked at the top of the GHS index, but due to multiple reasons, the U.S. government failed to effectively manage the COVID-19 pandemic. The GHS Index evaluates capability and identifies preparation gaps; nevertheless, it cannot predict a nation's resource allocation in case of a public health emergency.

Universal Health Coverage Index  Another health index that is used globally by the members of the United Nations (UN) is the universal health care (UHC) service coverage index. The UHC index monitors the country's progress related to the sustainable developmental goal (SDG) number three. The UHC service coverage index tracks 14 indicators related to reproductive, maternal, newborn, and child health, infectious diseases, non-communicable diseases, service capacity, and access to care. The main target of universal health coverage is to ensure that no one is denied access to essential medical services due to financial hardships. In 2021, the UHC index scores ranged from as low as 21 to a high score of 91 across 194 countries. 

In 2023, there were 149 government hospitals and 212 private licensed hospitals in Malaysia. During the COVID-19 pandemic, the Malaysian hospitals were prepared by the government to accommodate infected patients by increasing bed numbers. Although the country has now entered the post-COVID time, the pandemic had an impact on the healthcare system. COVID-19 hospitals During the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 and 2021, many of public and private hospitals provide screenings for coronavirus. However, these are paid services. Only the high-risk groups such as elderly population who live in a nursing home and healthcare workers were provided free COVID-19 tests by the government. About 59 hospitals that are owned by the Ministry of Health handled patients under investigation (PU) and suspected positive COVID-19 cases. In July 2020, these hospitals prepared over 400 beds in the intensive care unit (ICU) and an additional thousand-odd ventilators for COVID-19 patients exclusively. With the availability of vaccination against the disease, the number of patients significantly decreased. As of March 2022, around 80 percent of Malaysian population have been vaccinated. Digitalization of patient records In 2019, the Ministry of Health announced a plan to use electronic medical record (EMR) systems across all hospitals and clinics nationwide. The digitalization of patient records would then provide ease to the healthcare processes. Just like in most countries, the pandemic has also accelerated the digital evolution demand in Malaysia. To achieve this goal, the government has also improved connectivity and bandwidth infrastructure across the country. In 2021, Malaysia had a digital readiness index of 0.46 out of 2.5, putting it in the Accelerate Stage. In comparison, neighboring Singapore has made progress in its e-government strategy with a head start in 2011.