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This page has a large number of charts on the pandemic. In the box below you can select any country you are interested in – or several, if you want to compare countries.
All charts on this page will then show data for the countries that you selected.
- What is the total number of confirmed deaths?
- Total confirmed deaths: how rapidly have they increased compared to other countries?
- What is the daily number of confirmed deaths?
- Daily confirmed deaths: are we bending the curve?
- Daily confirmed deaths: when did countries bend the curve?
- Weekly and biweekly deaths: where are confirmed deaths increasing or falling?
- Global comparison: where are confirmed deaths increasing most rapidly?
- World maps: Confirmed deaths relative to the size of the population
What is the total number of confirmed deaths?
Related charts:
Three points on confirmed death figures to keep in mind:
All three points are true for all currently available international data sources on COVID-19 deaths.
- the actual total death toll from COVID-19 is likely to be higher than the number of confirmed deaths – this is due to limited testing and problems in the attribution of the cause of death; the difference between reported confirmed deaths and total deaths varies by country
- how COVID-19 deaths are recorded may differ between countries (e.g. some countries may only count hospital deaths, whilst others have started to include deaths in homes)
- the reported death figures on a given date does not necessarily show the number of new deaths on that day: this is due to delays in reporting.
→ We provide more detail on these three points in the section ‘Deaths from COVID-19: background‘.
Two tips on how you can interact with this chart
- Add any other country to this chart: click on the Add country button to compare with any other country.
- View this data on a world map: switch to a global map of confirmed deaths using the ‘MAP’ tab at the bottom of the chart.
Total confirmed deaths: how rapidly have they increased compared to other countries?
Charts which simply show the change in confirmed deaths over time are not very useful to answer the question of how the speed of the outbreak compares between different countries. This is because the outbreak of COVID-19 did not begin at the same time in all countries.
This chart here is designed to allow such comparisons.
The trajectory for each country begins on the day when that country had 5 confirmed deaths.
This allows you to compare how rapidly the number of confirmed deaths increased after the outbreak reached a similar stage in each country.
The grey lines in the background help you to see how rapidly the number of confirmed deaths is increasing
These lines show the trajectories for doubling times of 1, 2, 3, 5, and 10 days. If the slope that a country is on is steeper than a particular grey line, then the doubling time of confirmed cases in that country is faster than that. For example, there are several countries for which the slope was steeper than the ‘…every 2 days’ line – this means their death count doubled faster than every two days
How you can interact with this chart
- Clicking on any country in the chart highlights that country. If you click on several countries you can create a view in which you can compare several countries.
- Any country you might not see immediately you can find via the ‘Select Countries’ in the bottom left. Just type the name in the search box there.
- To focus on the countries you highlighted click on ‘Zoom to selection’.
What is the daily number of confirmed deaths?
Related charts:
The previous charts looked at the increase of total confirmed deaths – this chart shows the number of confirmed deaths per day.
Why is it helpful to also look at the three-day rolling average of daily confirmed deaths?
For all global data sources on the pandemic, daily data does not necessarily refer to deaths on that day – but to the deaths reported on that day.
Since reporting can vary very significantly from day to day – irrespectively of any actual variation of deaths – it is helpful to view the three-day rolling average of the daily figures. Below the chart you find the link to the rolling three-day average view.
→ We provide more detail in the section ‘Reported new cases on a particular day do not necessarily represent new cases on that day‘.
Another tip on how you can interact with this chart
By pulling the ends of the blue time slider you can focus the chart on a particular period. If you bring them together to one point in time then the line chart becomes a bar chart – this of course only makes sense if you compare countries (that is what the Add country button is for).
Daily confirmed deaths: are we bending the curve?
This trajectory chart shows whether countries make progress on bringing down the curve of new deaths.
To allow comparisons between countries the trajectory for each country begins on the day when that country first reported 5 daily deaths.
By default this chart is shown on a logarithmic vertical axis. We explain why in the next section. If you are not familiar with logarithmic axes we recommend you also look at this chart on a linear axis. The visual representation on these different axes can look very different.
This chart is shown on log axis, but you can switch to a linear axis
- The default view on a logarithmic y-axis is helpful to compare the growth rates between countries: on a logarithmic axis the steepness of the line corresponds to the growth rate. [Here is an explanation for how to read logarithmic axes.]
- But in this chart – as in many of our charts – you can switch to a linear axis – just click on ‘LOG’.
Daily confirmed deaths: when did countries bend the curve?
Related chart:
This chart shows the number of daily confirmed deaths (on the y-axis) plotted against the total number of confirmed deaths (on the x-axis).
Plotting the data in this way allows us to see when different countries bent the curve.
How you can interact with this chart
Clicking on any country in the chart highlights that country. If you click on several countries you can create a view in which you can compare several countries.
Any country you might not see immediately you can find via the ‘Select Countries’ in the bottom left. Just type the name in the search box there.
Weekly and biweekly deaths: where are confirmed deaths increasing or falling?
Why is it useful to look at weekly or biweekly changes in deaths?
For all global data sources on the pandemic, daily data does not necessarily refer to deaths on that day – but to the deaths reported on that day.
Since reporting can vary very significantly from day to day – irrespectively of any actual variation of deaths – it is helpful to look at changes from week to week. This provides a slightly clearer picture of where the pandemic is accelerating, slowing, or in fact reducing.
The maps shown here provide figures on weekly and biweekly deaths: one shows the number of deaths in the previous seven or fourteen days (the weekly or biweekly total); the other shows the growth rate over this period.
Three tips on how to interact with these maps
- By clicking on any country on the map you see the change over time in this country.
- By moving the time slider (below the map) you can see how the global situation has changed over time.
- You can focus on a particular world region using the dropdown menu to the top-right of the map.
Global comparison: where are confirmed deaths increasing most rapidly?
Simply looking at the total or daily number of confirmed deaths does not allow us to understand or compare the speed at which the toll is rising.
The table here shows how long it has taken for the number of deaths to double in each country for which we have data. The table also shows how the total number of confirmed deaths, and the number of daily new confirmed deaths, and how those numbers have changed over the last 14 days.
A tip on how to interact with this table
You can sort the table by any of the columns by clicking on the column header.
World maps: Confirmed deaths relative to the size of the population
Why adjust for the size of the population?
It can be insightful to know not just how many have died compared to how many people actually live in that country.
For instance, if 1,000 people died in Iceland, out of a population of about 340,000, that would have a far bigger impact than the same number dying in the USA, with its population of 331 million.1 The death count in more populous countries tends to be higher – here you can see this correlation.
This is why the two maps below show the deaths per million people of each country’s population.
Three tips on how to interact with these maps
- By clicking on any country on the map you see the change over time in this country.
- By moving the time slider (below the map) you can see how the global situation has changed over time.
- You can focus on a particular world region using the dropdown menu to the top-right of the map.
In this document and the many embedded and linked charts we report and visualize the data from the European Center for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC).2 We make the data used in our charts and tables downloadable as a complete and structured .csv file here.
The European CDC publishes daily statistics on the COVID-19 pandemic. Not just for Europe, but for the entire world. We rely on the ECDC as they collect and harmonize data from around the world which allows us to compare what is happening in different countries. The European CDC data provides a global perspective on the evolving pandemic.
The European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control ECDC provides three statistical resources on the COVID-19 pandemic:
The ECDC makes all their data available in a daily updated clean downloadable file. This gets updated daily reflecting data collected up to 6:00 and 10:00 CET.
The European CDC collects and aggregates data from countries around the world. The most up-to-date data for any particular country is therefore typically available earlier via the national health agencies than via the ECDC. This lag between nationally available data and the ECDC data is not very long as the ECDC publishes new data daily. But it can be several hours.
The attribution of deaths to specific causes can be challenging under any circumstances. Health problems are often connected, and multiplicative, meaning an underlying condition can often lead to complications which ultimately result in death.
This is also true in the case of COVID-19: the disease can lead to other health problems such as pneumonia and acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS).
So, how are deaths from COVID-19 recorded? What is and isn’t included in these totals?
As is standard in death reporting, countries are asked to follow the ‘cause of death’ classifications from the WHO’s International Classification of Diseases guidelines.3 However, countries also typically provide their own guidance to practitioners on how and when COVID-19 deaths should be recorded.
Let’s take a look at two concrete examples of national guidance: the United States and the UK. Both provide very similar guidelines for medical practitioners on the completion of death certificates. The US CDC’s Vital Statistics Reporting Guidance can be found here; the UK Government guidance is found here.4
Both guidelines state that if the practitioner suspects that COVID-19 played a role in an individual’s death it should be specified on the death certificate. In some cases, COVID-19 may be the underlying cause of death, having led to complications such as pneumonia or ARDS. Even when it’s the underlying and not the direct cause, COVID-19 should be listed.5
Although confirmed cases are reliant on a positive laboratory confirmation of the COVID-19 test, a laboratory diagnosis may not be required for it to be listed as the cause of death. In the UK guidelines, for example, it makes clear that practitioners should complete death certificates to the best of their knowledge, stating that “if before death the patient had symptoms typical of COVID19 infection, but the test result has not been received, it would be satisfactory to give ‘COVID-19’ as the cause of death, and then share the test result when it becomes available. In the circumstances of there being no swab, it is satisfactory to apply clinical judgement.”
This means a positive COVID-19 test result is not required for a death to be registered as COVID-19. In some circumstances, depending on national guidelines, medical practitioners can record COVID-19 deaths if they think the signs and symptoms point towards this as the underlying cause.
The US CDC guidelines also make this clear with an example: the death of an 86-year-old female with an unconfirmed case of COVID–19. It was reported that the woman had typical COVID-19 symptoms five days prior to suffering an ischemic stroke at home.Despite not being tested for COVID-19, the coroner determined that the likely underlying cause of death was COVID–19 given her symptoms and exposure to an infected individual.
Just as with confirmed cases, the number of deaths reported on a given day does not necessarily reflect the actual number of COVID-19 deaths on that day, or in the previous 24 hours. This is due to lags and delays in reporting.
Delays can occur for several reasons:
- after a death certificate has been completed, inspection by post-mortem or laboratory testing may be required to verify the cause of death;
- death certificates are then either automatically or manually coded: it is often the case that COVID-19 deaths are always manually coded (this is the case in the USA);
- there can be significant delays in this coding process, particularly when there is a large increase in the number of deaths (this can be as long as 7 days in the US);
- these figures are then collected in national registration statistics and reported to international sources.
This delay in reporting can be of the order of days – and sometimes as long as a week. This means the number of deaths reported on a given day are not reflective of the actual number of deaths which occurred on that day.
What we know is the total number of confirmed deaths due to COVID-19 to date. Limited testing and challenges in the attribution of the cause of death means that the number of confirmed deaths may not be an accurate count of the true total number of deaths from COVID-19.
The European Center for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) – our data source on deaths – publishes daily updates of confirmed deaths due to COVID-19.
In an ongoing outbreak the final outcomes – death or recovery – for all cases is not yet known. The time from symptom onset to death ranges from 2 to 8 weeks for COVID-19.6 This means that some people who are currently infected with COVID-19 will die at a later date. This needs to be kept in mind when comparing the current number of deaths with the current number of cases.
To understand the risks and respond appropriately we would also want to know the mortality risk of COVID-19 – the likelihood that someone who catches the disease will die from it.
We will look into this question in more detail further below in this article and explain that this requires us to know – or estimate – the number of total cases and the final number of deaths for a given infected population. Because these are not known, we discuss what the current data can and can not tell us about the risk of death.
We would like to acknowledge and thank a number of people in the development of this work: Carl Bergstrom, Bernadeta Dadonaite, Natalie Dean, Jason Hendry, Adam Kucharski, Moritz Kraemer and Eric Topol for their very helpful and detailed comments and suggestions on earlier versions of this work. Tom Chivers we would like to thank for his editorial review and feedback.
And we would like to thank the many hundreds of readers who give us feedback on this work every day. Your feedback is what allows us to continuously clarify and improve it. We very much appreciate you taking the time to write. We cannot respond to every message we receive, but we do read all feedback and aim to take the many helpful ideas into account. Thank you all.