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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 in the last 12 months 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:
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.
