A total of 800,000 Americans were killed by COVID-19 on Tuesday. This was a shocking figure considering that over 200,000 people died in the United States after this vaccine was made available.
Johns Hopkins University has compiled a list of all the deaths. It is roughly equal to Atlanta, St. Louis, and Minneapolis, and Cleveland combined. The number of Americans who die from stroke and heart disease each year is approximately equal to it.
United States reports the largest death toll. The U.S. accounts for approximately 4% of the world’s population but about 15% of the 5.3 million known deaths from the coronavirus since the outbreak began in China two years ago.
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Because cases were not reported or retold, the true death rate in America and the rest of the world may be significantly higher.
The University of Washington’s forecasting model is closely monitored and projects that there will be over 880,000 deaths reported in the U.S.A by March 1.
President Joe Biden on Tuesday noted what he called a “tragic milestone.” He again called on unvaccinated Americans to get shots for themselves and their children, and urged the vaccinated to get booster shots.
“I urge all Americans: do your patriotic duty to keep our country safe, to protect yourself and those around you, and to honor the memory of all those we have lost,” Biden said. “Now is the time.”
Many of these deaths were prevented by the vaccine. This was available from mid-December last year. It became accessible for all Americans by mid-April this year.
Relatively, 200 million Americans are fully immunized. This is just over half of the country’s population. Scientists believe that this is far below what is necessary to control the virus.
“Almost all the people dying are now dying preventable deaths,” said Dr. Chris Beyrer, an epidemiologist at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. “And that’s because they’re not immunized. And you know that, God, it’s a terrible tragedy.”
When the vaccine was first rolled out, the country’s death toll stood at about 300,000. The death toll was 600,000 by mid-June. It was 700,000 by Oct. 1.
With the U.S. crossing the threshold, hospitalizations and cases rose again due to a spike in infection by the contagious Delta variant. This highly contagious virus was introduced in the second half of 2021. It now accounts for almost all infected people. The omicron variant of the virus is now gaining ground in the United States, although scientists don’t know how dangerous it might be.
Beyrer recalls that the worse-case scenario for American death in March and April 2020 was 240,000.
“And I saw that number, and I thought that is incredible — 240,000 American deaths?” he said. “And we’re now past three times that number.” He added: “And I think it’s fair to say that we’re still not out of the woods.”
