(Marc-Antoine De La Vega/ The Conversation) — When I first wrote about the arrival of SARS-CoV-2 in early March 2020, the question was whether or not the new virus would become a pandemic. At the time, most experts believed that we had already reached the point of no return.
Today, 18 months later, the answer is clear. You don’t need to be a scientist to know it. This pandemic is the worst public health emergency of international concern that our modern society has faced. To date, more than 215 million cases have been confirmed and 4.5 million deaths have been reported globally.
These are just the reported cases. In reality, the number of cases is higher, and for a variety of reasons: lack of diagnostic capacity, infection without symptoms, unwillingness or inability to be tested or to visit a health facility, etc. The number of deaths due to COVID-19 is probably underestimated, both in Canada and worldwide. (…)