The United States was on the verge of an account that was previously unthinkable on Sunday: 500,000 people lost the coronavirus.
A year after the pandemic, the total loss of life was about 498,000 people, approximately the population of Kansas City, Missouri, and almost shy the size of Atlanta. The figure compiled by Johns Hopkins University exceeds the number of people who died in 2019 due to chronic diseases of the lower respiratory tract, stroke, Alzheimer’s, flu and pneumonia combined.
“It’s nothing like what we’ve experienced in the last 102 years, since the 1918 flu pandemic,” Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nation’s infectious disease expert, on CNN’s “State of the Union.”
The number of deaths from the American virus reached 400,000 on Jan. 19 in the waning hours of President Donald Trump’s office, whose treatment of the crisis was judged by public health experts as a singular failure.
The nation could surpass that last milestone on Monday. President Joe Biden will mark the US crossing 500,000 lost lives of COVID-19 with a moment of silence and candlelight ceremony in the White House.
Biden will make statements at sunset to honor the dead, the White House said. She is expected to be accompanied by First Lady Jill Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris and her husband, Doug Emhoff.
The first known deaths from the virus in the U.S. occurred in early February 2020, both in Santa Clara County, California. It took four months to reach the first 100,000 dead. The toll reached 200,000 deaths in September and 300,000 in December. Then it took just over a month to go from 300,000 to 400,000 and about two months to go up from 400,000 to around 500,000.
Joyce Willis of Las Vegas is among the countless Americans who lost family members during the pandemic. Her husband, Anthony Willis, died on December 28, followed by her mother-in-law in early January.
There were anxious calls from the ICU when her husband was hospitalized. She could not see him before she died because she also had the virus and could not visit her.
“She is OK. Your loved one is gone, but you’re still alive, “Willis said.” It’s like you still have to get up every morning. You have to take care of your kids and make a living. There’s no way “We just have to move on.”
Then came a nightmare scenario of caring for her father-in-law while dealing with grief, arranging funerals, paying bills, helping her children navigate school online, and figuring out how to return to work as an occupational therapist.
Her father-in-law, a Vietnam veterinarian, also contracted the virus. He also suffered respiratory problems and died on 8 February. The family is not sure if COVID-19 contributed to his death.
“Some days I feel good and other days I feel strong and I can do that,” he said. “And other days it’s just my turn. My whole world is upside down. ”
According to Johns Hopkins, the overall death toll was approaching 2.5 million.
Although the count is based on figures provided by government agencies around the world, the actual number of deaths is believed to be significantly higher, in part due to inadequate evidence and cases incorrectly attributed to other causes at first.
Despite efforts to administer coronavirus vaccines, a model widely cited by the University of Washington projects that the death toll in the United States will exceed 589,000 on June 1.
“People will talk about this for decades and decades,” Fauci told NBC’s “Meet The Press.”
___
Associated Press writer Heather Hollingsworth in Kansas City, Missouri, contributed to this report.