United States passes ‘unimaginable’ milestone of 500,000 Covid-19 deaths

The death toll in the United States from the coronavirus pandemic has exceeded 500,000, underscoring the devastation of the pandemic as officials rush to roll out vaccinations as quickly as possible to avoid another outbreak.

The solemn milestone comes almost a year after the first death from the virus was recorded in the country. The US death toll of 500,071 is by far the highest in the world in absolute terms, and almost double the 246,504 deaths in Brazil, the country with the second highest number of deaths, according to data from Johns University Hopkins.

The number of coronavirus cases and hospitalizations in the United States saw its largest increases after the Thanksgiving and Christmas holidays. The daily death toll exceeded more than 4,000 times in January, making it the deadliest month of the pandemic in the United States, with more than 94,000 confirmed deaths.

“It’s really just a horrible loss,” said Ashish Jha, dean of the Brown University School of Public Health, adding that losing 500,000 Americans was “unimaginable” a year ago, when Donald Trump predicted that 100,000 to 240,000 people could die. virus.

President Joe Biden has ordered the flags at the White House and on federal property to be lowered at half mast for the next five days out of respect for the victims.

“We must resist considering every life as a statistic,” he said Monday evening before a candle-lighting ceremony.

“As we all remember, I also ask us to act, to remain vigilant, to remain socially distant, to mask ourselves, to be vaccinated when it is your turn. We must end the politics and disinformation that have divided families, communities and the country and that have already claimed too many lives. “

There have been signs in recent days that the United States has successfully tackled the trajectory of the disease after a grueling few months that saw hospitals overwhelmed.

Coronavirus hospitalizations are down about 58% since their peak in January, at 56,159, according to data from the Covid Tracking Project. Over the past week, the United States reported an average of 64,301 infections per day, down 74% from the peak rate of over 247,000 at the start of January.

Almost all states are seeing a drop in these metrics, helping to bring the seven-day average of deaths down to less than 2,000 per day for the first time since early December.

Cases are expected to decrease as vaccines are distributed more widely. More than 44 million Americans have received at least one dose of the coronavirus vaccine, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

While there were some delays caused by winter storms last week – which brought the seven-day immunization average down to 1.46 million as of February 17 – the Biden administration is on track to hit its target. goal of 100 million doses in its first 100 days.

The wildcard facing public health officials is the emergence of new, more infectious variants of the virus that could hamper the effectiveness of vaccine deployment.

Rochelle Walensky, CDC director, warned last week that the B.1.1.7 variant, which was first detected in the UK, was “likely the dominant strain” in the US in the coming months. and reiterated a call to the Americans. to avoid unnecessary travel.

Until now, the United States still counts the number of cases of new strains in the thousands. The CDC said there have been 1,661 cases of B.1.1.7 in 44 states; 22 cases of 501.V2, first discovered in South Africa; and five from P1, from Brazil.

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However, the United States might underestimate the number of such cases as it is just beginning to ramp up genomic surveillance, hampering its ability to understand the spread of new variants.

Experts were divided over the effect of the new strains, said Jha of Brown University. Some fear that the United States is experiencing a wave like those seen in the United Kingdom, Denmark and Portugal. Others, including Jha, are hoping the United States will take preventative action and benefit from being further along in the vaccine rollout.

“Now is not the time to start relaxing policies. Now is not the time to say, ‘Let’s open the restaurants and bars,’ ” Jha said. “Now is the time to stay relatively curled up until we have a lot more clarity on where this is going.”

So far, Covid-19 vaccines have been able to tackle the variant first discovered in the UK, but it is questionable whether the South African strain will escape the immune responses generated by the vaccine.

The vaccine rollout in the United States will get a boost from new jabs, starting with Johnson & Johnson, which is expected to receive emergency clearance after the regulator holds its consultative meeting on Friday.

J&J plans to deliver 100 million doses to the United States in the first half of 2020. However, Anthony Fauci, the chief medical adviser to the Biden administration, said J&J will not significantly increase supplies in the near term.

In the spring, the Food and Drug Administration will likely review Novavax and Oxford / AstraZeneca’s vaccines for approval, which together could increase supplies to as much as 400 million. The Biden administration has already ordered enough doses to fully immunize every American.