The actual toll is likely much higher. Here’s how some of the worst outbreaks spread.

Last New Year’s Eve, a hint of what the world might be in for in 2020 arrived in the form of an Associated Press story about 27 people in Wuhan, China, who had fallen ill with a mysterious strain of viral pneumonia. This was the first news of the new illness reported outside of China.

Less than 11 months later, 50 million people worldwide are confirmed to have been infected with the SARS-CoV-2 virus that causes the Covid-19 disease. And more than 1,250,000 Covid-19 deaths have been reported.

It’s a grim milestone, one that reflects the coronavirus’s contagiousness as well as a global failure to contain its spread.

Ten highly populated countries account for about two-thirds of confirmed coronavirus tests since the pandemic