The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention predicts the U.S. will see 400,000 coronavirus deaths on Jan. 20, when President Donald Trump leaves office.
The country surpassed 100,000 deaths in May and 200,000 four months later. It passed 300,000 in three months and 400,000 seems to take only a month, the CDC determined through a collection of mathematical models. The US has one of the highest mortality rates of the nations most affected by the virus, only behind Italy, Spain and the UK, in terms of population.
The projected rate would mean an additional 65,000 deaths in the coming weeks. The figures are a reminder of the growing speed with which the virus claims to live in the United States, underscoring the urgency of vaccine distribution efforts.
President-elect Joe Biden was expected on Tuesday to accuse the Trump administration of the slow deployment of vaccines, which exceeds 2 million doses administered, a fraction of the 20 million promised by the end of the year.
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Weekly deaths are expected to rise until Jan. 16, though the number of national cases has dropped for the past two weeks amid reports of irregular holidays. Only Washington state reported an average of seven days in cases that was substantially higher than a week earlier, according to data from the Covid Monitoring Project.
Nationwide, the U.S. released 162,190 new cases of Covid-19 on Monday, according to data from the Covid Monitoring Project. There have been at least 335,051 deaths attributed to the virus, according to data from Johns Hopkins University.