A doctor waits for an X-ray of a COVID-19 patient's lungs at a hospital in Los Angeles
Highlights
- The death toll is roughly equal to how many Americans died in Civil War and World War II combined
- The death toll data is based on death certificate data compiled by the CDC
- The real number of deaths in the US due to COVID-19 is however, believed to be higher
Nearly two and a half years into the coronavirus pandemic, the death toll due to COVID-19 in the United States hit 1 million on Monday. The confirmed number of dead is equivalent to a 9/11 attack every day for 336 days. It is roughly equal to how many Americans died in the Civil War and World War II combined. It’s as if Boston and Pittsburgh were wiped out.
The death toll less than two and a half years into the outbreak is based on death certificate data compiled by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s National Center for Health Statistics. However, the real number of lives lost to COVID-19, either directly or indirectly, as a result, the disruption of the health care system in the world’s richest country, is believed to be far higher.
The US has the highest reported COVID-19 death toll of any country, though health experts have long suspected that the real number of deaths in places such as Brazil and Russia is higher than the official figures.
The milestone comes more than three months after the US reached 9,00,000 deaths. The pace has slowed since a harrowing winter surge fueled by the omicron variant.
The US is averaging about 300 COVID-19 deaths per day, compared with a peak of about 3,400 a day in January 2021. New cases are on the rise again, climbing more than 60 per cent in the past two weeks to an average of about 86,000 a day — still well below the all-time high of over 800,000, reached when the omicron variant was raging during the winter.
More than half the deaths occurred since vaccines became available in December of 2020. Two-thirds of Americans are fully vaccinated, and nearly half of them have had at least one booster dose. But demand for the vaccine has plummeted, and the campaign to put shots in arms has been plagued by misinformation, distrust and political polarization.
Unvaccinated people have a 10 times greater risk of dying of COVID-19 than the fully vaccinated, according to the CDC.
(With inputs from AP)
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