But the subsequent WHO announcement was the first time that the world at large was made aware of its existence. Still, we can get a sense of how the pandemic has spread – and how case rates have expanded and retracted – over the last two years by looking at case rates on continents. This was partly driven by consistently high case rates in Brazil, which have had an effect on the continent’s numbers throughout the pandemic. North America had the highest case rates at the end of 2020 as Trump’s presidency came to a turbulent end. Peru has recorded 6,062 deaths per million people over the course of the pandemic.

Source: The Guardian December 31, 2021 21:55 UTC