The worldwide death toll from COVID-19 surpassed 5 million on Monday, and the more than 740,000 lives lost in the United States is the most of any nation, Johns Hopkins University data show.

“This is a defining moment in our lifetime,” Dr. Albert Ko, an infectious disease specialist at the Yale School of Public Health, told the Associated Press. “What do we have to do to protect ourselves so we don’t get to another 5 million?”

Being a wealthy country provided little protection: The United States, Britain, Brazil and European Union account for one-eighth of the world’s population, but nearly half of all reported COVID-19 deaths since the pandemic began 22 months ago, the AP reported.

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