Comprehensive global-scale evaluation of the COVID-19 pandemic associated with 234 countries, territories, and sub-national locations during 2020–2024

Abstract

Comprehensive estimation of COVID-19, including infection, death, excess mortality, case fatality rate (CFR), and infection fatality rate (IFR), is essential for understanding the pandemic’s pattern. The location-specific estimates of infection, death, and excess mortality of COVID-19 from January 1, 2020, to February 11, 2024, and we have cumulative infections and cumulative deaths worldwide. Using the WHO dataset and Our World in Data, we estimated infection, mortality, excess mortality, CFR, and IFR in 234 countries and territories during COVID-19. We found a cumulative 0.774631 billion infections and 7.031 million deaths worldwide. The global highest infection peak was noted on December 25, 2022, with 42.5 million infection cases. Similarly, considering region-wise infection, cumulative infection was highest in Europe (428.4 M) and lowest in Africa (9.6 M). The global highest death peak was noted on January 24, 2021, with 103.7 K million deaths; this might be due to the spread of the Delta variant in some regions of Asia. Similarly, region-wise mortality was calculated. The considerable excess mortality pattern was noted in Europe, South America, and North America. Decreasing trends in excess mortality were noted in Oceania, Asia, and Africa. Our studies could be beneficial in formulating public health strategies and implementing policies about those regions, which are crucial to global health and will help future pandemics.