The Strait of Hormuz, between Iran and Oman, is only about 33 kilometres wide at its narrowest point, and its shipping lanes are just 3 km wide in each direction. Yet according to the US Energy Information Administration, some 20 million barrels of oil passed through it every day in 2024, about a fifth of global consumption. In 2026, the war involving Iran cut that traffic to a fraction of its usual level. Only a few Saudi and Emirati pipelines can bypass part of the flow.
That's the estimate from a WHO-led study published in The Lancet in 2024, covering the half-century since the Expanded Programme on Immunization was launched in 1974. It works out to about six lives saved every minute, mostly infants. The measles vaccine alone accounts for around 60% of those lives.
According to the World Gold Council, about 216,000 tonnes of gold have been mined in all of human history. Because gold is so dense (19.3 tonnes per cubic metre), it would fit in a cube about 22 metres on each side, roughly the height of a seven-storey building. Strikingly, about two-thirds of it has been mined since 1950.