Cumulative deaths per capita by income

This chart shows the evolution over time of the cumulative COVID-19 mortality rate across World Bank income groups. The cumulative mortality rate expresses COVID-19 fatalities since the start of the pandemic relative to the size of the population. 

By relating COVID-19 mortality to population size, we get a measure of the burden of disease. In contrast to the absolute mortality toll, the mortality rate provides an indication of the performance of country or group of countries in terms of protecting its population against death with COVID as the underlying cause.

It should be noted that the different income groups shown here are of very different population size dimensions. The global population as per the 2021 medium-variant projection of World Population Prospects is 7,866 million people, which is distributed as follows:

• High-income countries (HICs): 1,236 million
• Upper-middle-income countries (UMICs): 2,567 million
• Lower-middle-income countries (LMICs): 3,361 million

• Low-income countries (LICs): 702 million

In light of these differences in population size, absolute mortality numbers will be quite different given the differences in rates.