COVID-19 death toll in the U.S. hits 8,00,000.
The U.S. death toll from COVID-19 reached 8.000 on Tuesday, a once unimaginable number seen as doubly tragic considering that over 250,000 of those deaths were lost when the vaccine became accessible for the price of a single shot last spring.
According to the data determined from Johns Hopkins University, the number of deaths is roughly equal to the number of people in Atlanta or St. Louis combined, or Minneapolis and Cleveland taken together.
This is about the same as the number of Americans who die each year due to coronary heart diseases or strokes.
The United States has the highest reported toll of any nation. It represents for roughly 4 percent of the world’s population.
But approximately 15% of the 5.3 million deaths reported from the coronavirus outbreak that started with China about two years ago.
The actual death number of the U.S. and around the globe may be substantially more than that due to incidents that were not noticed or reported.
However, a highly watched forecasting model developed by the University of Washington projects a total of nearly 880,000 deaths reported across the U.S. by March 1.
Health experts say that many of the deaths that occurred in the United States were especially heartbreaking because they could have been prevented by using the vaccine that was made available mid-December one year ago and was open to everyone by mid-April this year.
More than 60 percent of Americans are entirely immunized
Around 200 million Americans are fully protected, about 60 percent of the overall population.
However, this is less than the level of vaccination recommended by scientists to ensure that the virus is kept under control.
“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 tragedy.”
When the first vaccine was introduced, the nation’s death toll was estimated at around 3,00,000. The number climbed to 600,000 by mid-June and 700,000 by October 1.
The U.S. crossed the latest threshold, with hospitalizations and cases on the rise due to the highly contagious delta variant discovered in the first part of 2021. It now is responsible for almost all cases.
In addition, the omicron variant is growing in popularity across the United States, even though researchers aren’t sure of the dangers it could be.
She is a freelance blogger, writer, and speaker, and writes for various entertainment magazines.