The world has hit a frightening COVID-19 threshold, with two million people dead and few expectations for the numbers to start dropping any time soon.

Vaccination is going slowly in the US, and in some parts of the world, it¢¥s virtually non-existent. Therefore, the odds are slim of controlling the outbreak before the summer at the earliest. Overall, the US is leading all countries in deaths, with nearly 390,000 people, and the next countries in the line are Brazil, India and Mexico. COVID-19 has already killed more people than malaria and tuberculosis combined in the past year.

According to scientists from the University of Washington, fewer than one million people will die from COVID-19 this year. The latest analysis projects 2.89 million deaths worldwide by the end of 2021.

Difficult words: threshold (an important level or point at which something happens or changes), non-existent (something that doesn¢¥t exist or that isn¢¥t real), odds (the chances of something happening).