The death toll in the United States from coronavirus exceeded 300,000 on Monday just as the country began dispensing COVID-19 injections in a monumental campaign to conquer the outbreak.
The death toll rivals the population of St. Louis or Pittsburgh. It is equivalent to repeating a tragedy on the scale of Hurricane Katrina every day for five and a half months. It is more than five times the number of Americans killed in the Vietnam War. It equates to a 9/11 attack every day for over 100 days.
“The numbers are staggering: the most shocking respiratory pandemic we have experienced in more than 102 years, since the iconic Spanish flu of 1918,” said Dr. Anthony Fauci, the government’s leading infectious disease expert, days before the milestone.
“We are heading for the worst possible period because of all the things we had in the spring, which are fatigue, political resistance, maybe the loss of all the good will we had for people to do their part,” he said. say Jennifer Nuzzo, a public health researcher at Johns Hopkins.
The United States crossed the same day that health workers rolled up to receive the Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine, marking the start of the largest vaccination campaign in U.S. history. If a second vaccine is authorized soon, as might be expected, 20 million people could be immunized by the end of the month.
Meanwhile, this is quickly a radical change in Washington after an election that was largely a referendum on the Trump administration’s handling of the virus. President-elect Joe Biden has made it clear that his first priority will be a comprehensive and disciplined effort to defeat the outbreak.
The death toll was reported by Johns Hopkins University based on data provided by US health authorities. UU. The actual number of lives lost is believed to be much higher, in part due to deaths that were not accurately recorded as coronavirus-related during the early stages of the crisis.
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Globally, the virus is blamed on more than 1.6 million people.
Experts say vaccines and other measures could be taken until late spring to control cases and deaths in the United States. UU.
With the cold weather that will bring people inside, where the virus will spread more easily, and many Americans from masks and other precautions, some public health authorities project that 100,000 more could die before fines are imposed. ‘January.
“We are heading for the worst possible period because of all the things we had in the spring, which are fatigue, political resistance, maybe the loss of all the good will we had for people to do their part,” he said. say Jennifer Nuzzo, a public health researcher at Johns Hopkins.