The pandemic toll now stands at 1 in 500 Americans

(News)
– In late December, the United States hit the grim milestone of 1,000 COVID deaths per million people, meaning the pandemic had killed one in a thousand Americans. The country reached the next milestone on Tuesday, COVID having claimed one in 500 since the first infection reported early last year, CNN reports. The pandemic has killed nearly 664,000 Americans, according to Johns Hopkins University – a total reported higher than any other country, although some, including Peru, Brazil and Hungary, have higher death rates.

With the most infectious delta variant now the dominant strain, the United States now averages more than 150,000 new infections reported each day and about 1,800 deaths, according to Johns Hopkins. “We’re sort of where we predicted we would be with a completely uncontrolled spread of the infection,” said Jeffrey D. Klausner, clinical professor of medicine, population and public health at the Keck School of Medicine. the University of Southern California. Washington post.

The one in 500 figure does not reflect the huge differences in the number of COVID deaths between age groups, races and regions, the To post reports. Among people over 85, who account for about a quarter of COVID deaths, the virus has killed one in 35. In younger age groups, the race difference is stark: COVID has killed one in 240 Native Americans aged 40 to 64, compared to one in 480 blacks and one in 1300 whites in the same age group. In Mississippi and New Jersey, the pandemic has killed one in 330 people, while in Vermont, which has the highest vaccination rate in the country, the rate is one in 2,100. (Read more stories on coronaviruses.)