Cumulative deaths per capita by World Bank region

This chart shows the evolution over time of the cumulative COVID-19 mortality rate across World Bank regions. 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 regional 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:

• East Asia & Pacific (EAP): 2,392 million
• Europe & Central Asia (ECA): 930 million
• Latin America & Caribbean (LAC): 655 million
• Middle East & North Africa (MNA): 472 million
• North America (NAM): 374 million
• South Asia (SAR): 1,877 million

• Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA): 1,166 million

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