Covid is already deadlier this year, variants are spreading but many in U.S. think the pandemic is over.

Covid is already deadlier this year than all of 2020. So why do many in U.S. think the problem’s over? In the global scramble for Covid-19 vaccines, high-income countries, predictably, have sought to secure stocks for their own populations first. Sam Meredith CNBC

As the U.S. pushes ahead with its reopening, easing mask mandates and lifting public health restrictions, much of the rest of the world is seeing an alarming surge in the number of Covid-19 infections and deaths.

The stark contrast underscores how unevenly the coronavirus pandemic has spread, now hitting low-income nations harder as they struggle with access to vaccines, the rapid spread of new variants and heavily burdened health-care systems.

It also shows why, even with nations such as the U.S., China and the U.K. recording relatively low Covid infections and fatalities thanks to a mass vaccination drive, the global health crisis is still far from over.

To be sure, more people have died from Covid this year than in all of 2020, according to data compiled by the World Health Organization. The official global death toll stood at 1,813,188 at the end of 2020. More than 2 million people have died as a result of Covid so far this year.

U.S. Covid cases have fallen far below the winter peak in recent weeks, with new diagnoses now down at a seven-day average of around 11,310 a day, compared to more than 250,000 at the start of the year. Fewer reported infections have coincided with fewer hospitalizations and deaths.

It has paved the way for most states to pursue plans to go back to business as usual, with California and New York both lifting most of their public health restrictions in recent days. ...

The latest Axios-Ipsos Coronavirus Index found that the country’s fears of Covid continued to recede as people increasingly got out of their homes. In the week through to June 8, roughly two-thirds of Americans saw family and friends and 61% went out to eat.

Both of those figures were up from late May and were said to represent “the greatest level of out of home activity since the start of the pandemic.” The Axios-Ipsos poll was conducted from June 4 to June 7 and was based on a nationally representative probability sample of 1,027 adults. ...

Health experts have cautioned that billions of people worldwide may not have access to vaccines this year, a prospect that raises the risk of further mutations of the virus emerging — possibly undermining the effectiveness of existing vaccines — and prolonging the pandemic.

“The very unequal access to vaccines between rich and poor countries is probably the most stark example of how global inequalities are manifesting themselves during the Covid-19 pandemic,” Dr. Michael Baker, an epidemiologist at the University of Otago in Wellington, New Zealand told CNBC. ...