“Covid-19 has killed over 1.6 million people around the world. But, God kept you alive. Just use 10 seconds to ‘THANK GOD’,” reads the text on a graphic shared on Facebook in Nigeria on 16 July 2020.
It shows a photo of two Nollywood actors: Chinedu Ikedieze, professionally known as “Aki”, and Osita Iheme, known as “Pawpaw”.
But has Covid-19, the disease caused by the new coronavirus, killed more than 1.6 million people worldwide?
Global Covid-19 deaths still under 1 million
On 16 July, countries across the world had reported a total of 580,045 deaths from Covid-19 to the World Health Organization. That’s less than half of 1.6 million. On the day, there were 13.4 million confirmed cases of the disease worldwide.
By 20 July this had risen to over 14.3 million global cases and 603,691 deaths. Nigeria reported 37,225 confirmed cases, with 801 deaths.
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