SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — According to North Korea, its fight against COVID-19 has been impressive: About 3.3 million people have been reported sick with fevers, but only 69 have died.
If all are coronavirus cases, that's a fatality rate of 0.002%, something no other country, including the world's richest, has achieved against a disease that has killed more than 6 million people.
Cancer death rates have steadily declined among Black people but remain higher than in other racial and ethnic groups, a U.S. government study released Thursday shows.
Cancer deaths have been dropping for all Americans for the past two decades because of lower smoking rates and advances in early detection and treatment.
A rare but aggressive kind of uterine cancer appears to be driving an increase in U.S. deaths from the disease, particularly among Black women, researchers reported Thursday.
Over eight years, deaths from the aggressive type rose by 2.7% per year, while deaths were stable for the less aggressive kind, their study found.
STOCKHOLM (AP) — Sweden’s former chief epidemiologist, considered the architect of the country's unconventional response to the coronavirus pandemic, isn’t going to work for the World Health Organization after all.
LONDON (AP) — The prevalence of COVID-19 in the U.K. has reached record levels, with about 1 in 13 people estimated to be infected with the virus in the past week, according to the latest figures from Britain's official statistics agency.
NEW YORK (AP) — Two years into the COVID-19 pandemic, most of the world has seen a dramatic improvement in infections, hospitalizations and death rates in recent weeks, signaling the crisis appears to be winding down.
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden on Wednesday set a 25-year timeline to cut in half the cancer death rate, a lofty but perhaps unrealistic goal that is meant to “supercharge” an initiative started when he was vice president to eradicate the disease that killed his older son, Beau.
BIRMINGHAM, Ala. (AP) — COVID-19 numbers are again headed in the wrong direction in Alabama, with hospitalizations up more than 50% from a month ago and school cases climbing in the state with the nation's second-highest death rate during the pandemic.
LONDON (AP) — Almost two years into the pandemic, Black people and members of other racial and ethnic minorities in Britain are still dying with the coronavirus at higher rates than white residents, likely because of lower vaccination rates, a government-commissioned report said Friday.
LONDON (AP) — The British government is investigating whether built-in racial bias in some medical devices led to Black and Asian people getting sick and dying disproportionately from COVID-19.
Health Secretary Sajid Javid said Sunday that the pandemic had highlighted health disparities along race and gender lines.
JAKARTA, Indonesia (AP) — Indonesians are looking ahead warily toward the holiday travel season, anxious for crucial tourist spending but worried an influx of visitors could spread the coronavirus just as its pandemic situation seems to be subsiding.
SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — California has among the lowest death rates nationally among pregnant women and new mothers, but the numbers for Black mothers tell a different story.
They were six times more likely to die within a year of pregnancy than white women from 2014 to 2016 and had a higher rate of death than Black women nationally from 2014 to 2017, the most recent time frame for which data is available.
VELIKO TARNOVO, Bulgaria (AP) — Standing outside the rundown public hospital in Bulgaria's northern town of Veliko Tarnovo, the vaccination unit's chief nurse voices a sad reality about her fellow citizens: “They don’t believe in vaccines.”
AUSTIN, Texas (AP) — Texas' lieutenant governor blamed rising hospitalization and death rates from COVID-19 on unvaccinated Black people — comments that were quickly denounced as racist.
KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia (AP) — Indonesia has converted nearly its entire oxygen production to medical use just to meet the demand from COVID-19 patients struggling to breathe. Overflowing hospitals in Malaysia had to resort to treating patients on the floor.
BOGOTA, Colombia (AP) — Colombia reached 100,000 confirmed deaths from COVID-19 this week, becoming just the tenth country in the world to hit the grim milestone.
The South American nation of 50 million has been registering a growing number of daily cases since April and over the past seven days it had the world’s third-highest per capita death rate from COVID-19, according to data published by Oxford University.
NEW YORK (AP) — The U.S. saw remarkable increases in the death rates for heart disease, diabetes and some other common killers in 2020, and experts believe a big reason may be that many people with dangerous symptoms made the lethal mistake of staying away from the hospital for fear of catching the coronavirus.
PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti (AP) — Ever since the pandemic began, Haiti had perplexed experts with seemingly low infection and death rates from COVID-19 despite its rickety public health system, a total lack of vaccines and a widespread disdain for safety measures like masks and distancing.
ATHENS, Greece (AP) — Greece’s prime minister has issued an appeal for elderly Greeks to get vaccinated, blaming hesitancy for persistently high rates of death and hospitalization.
“The data we have from ICUs and intubated patients are clear: 95% of them, who are fellow citizens of ours, are not fully vaccinated,” Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis said Wednesday.
The COVID-19 pandemic pushed total U.S. deaths last year beyond 3.3 million, the nation’s highest annual death toll, the government reported Wednesday.
The coronavirus caused approximately 375,000 deaths, and was the third leading cause of death in 2020, after heart disease and cancer.
WASHINGTON — Former President Donald Trump is slamming two of his most prominent coronavirus advisers. He says Dr. Anthony Fauci and Dr. Deborah Birx are “two self-promoters trying to reinvent history.”
NAIROBI, Kenya (AP) — With Kenya's COVID-19 cases and deaths surging, President Uhuru Kenyatta has announced tightened restrictions in five of the most affected counties.
The new restrictions have been imposed in the country's capital Nairobi and the three urban counties surrounding it, plus Nakuru, a major transit city.
WARSAW, Poland (AP) — Poland recorded its highest daily number of new coronavirus infections Wednesday as hospitals buckle under a new surge. Hungary has the highest per capita death rate in the world.
MONTGOMERY, Ala. (AP) — Alabama will lower its flags on Saturday to recall the more than 10,200 lives that have been lost to COVID-19 over the last year.
Gov. Kay Ivey issued an order to state agencies on Friday saying flags should remain at half-staff until sunset.
SEOUL, South Korea -- South Korea will start administering coronavirus vaccines to hundreds of thousands of elders in long-term care settings this month after authorities approved the use of shots developed by AstraZeneca and Oxford University for adults 65 years old and older.
NEW YORK (AP) — Researchers on Tuesday reported another record one-year decline in the U.S. cancer death rate, a drop they attribute to success against lung cancer.
The overall cancer death rate has been falling since 1991.
STOCKHOLM (AP) — A train pulls into the Odenplan subway station in central Stockholm, where morning commuters without masks get off or board before settling in to read their smartphones.
Whether on trains or trams, in supermarkets or shopping malls — places where face masks are commonly worn in much of the world — Swedes go about their lives without them.
LE PECQ, France (AP) — Death rates among immigrants from sub-Saharan Africa doubled in France and tripled in the Paris region at the height of France's coronavirus outbreak, according to a study from the French government's statistics agency released Tuesday.
NEW DELHI (AP) — Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi said in a live address Tuesday that the country's coronavirus death rate is under control, but that the country is at a “critical juncture.”
Modi's sixth address since the pandemic began came as India reported nearly 570,000 infections and over 16,000 deaths.
MEXICO CITY (AP) — Mexico said Friday that it will allow more businesses to reopen in parts of the country despite continued high infection and death rates.
The federal Health Department said 5,441 more coronavirus cases were confirmed nationwide Friday, for a total of 208,392 since the pandemic began.
Death rates are 12 times higher for coronavirus patients with chronic illnesses than for others who become infected, a new U.S. government report says.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention report released Monday highlights the dangers posed by heart disease, diabetes and lung ailments.
STOCKHOLM (AP) — Sweden's chief epidemiologist on Wednesday defended his country's controversial coronavirus strategy, which avoided a lockdown but resulted in one of the highest per capita COVID-19 death rates in the world.
DETROIT (AP) — The rate of fatal automobile crashes in the U.S. jumped dramatically in March, even though the number of miles driven plummeted due to coronavirus stay-home orders.
The National Safety Council said Wednesday that based on preliminary figures from states, the number of fatal crashes per 100 million miles driven rose an “alarming” 14% compared with March of 2019.