Top 50: Cumulative deaths by income (last 12 months)

This chart takes a snapshot of the Top 50 countries which currently have the highest cumulative COVID-19 mortality in absolute numbers in the last 12 months. It groups the countries by World Bank income group and ranks them within each region by the daily absolute mortality toll. The comparison of countries among their per capita income peers (as captured by the World Bank income classification) is useful to account for differences in structural features between income groups.

The absolute expression of the mortality toll is useful to highlight the the contribution of countries or groups of countries to the global total. Mortality rates, which express the absolute toll relative to population size, provide an indication of performance controlling for population size. The absolute numbers however take the view that a life lost is a life lost, no matter where the person happened to live. It offers a valuable perspective on the absolute scale of the pandemic’s death toll.