UNITED NATIONS, November 1. /TASS/. UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres has warned about a growing risk of new coronavirus variants spreading across the globe that "crossed a painful new threshold - five million lives lost to COVID-19".

"Five million deaths should also stand as a clear warning: we cannot let our guard down. We are still seeing more deaths. Overcrowded hospitals and exhausted health workers. And the risk of new variants spreading and claiming more lives," the Secretary General said in a statement issued on Monday.

"At the same time, other dangerous threats continue to allow COVID-19 to thrive - misinformation, vaccine hoarding and vaccine nationalism, and lack of global solidarity," he emphasized.

"It would be a mistake to think that the pandemic is over," Antonio Guterres warned. "As restrictions ease in many places, we must also match vaccines with vigilance - including through smart and proven public health measures like masking and social distancing," he stressed.

According to TASS calculations, the death toll from coronavirus exceeded five million people as of October 28. Later, these figures were confirmed by the World Health Organization. The first coronavirus death was reported on January 11, 2020. One million fatalities were recorded on September 28, and two million - in less than four months, on January 15, 2021. The threshold of three million deaths was passed in another three months, and four million deaths were reported on July 6.