COVID claims 1 million lives in US

NEW YORK, May 11 (Reuters) – The United States has recorded more than 1 million deaths from COVID-19, according to a Reuters tally, crossing a once-unthinkable milestone some two years after the first life-changing cases. everyday life and quickly transform it. .

The 1 million mark is a stark reminder of the staggering pain and loss caused by the pandemic, even as the threat posed by the virus fades in many people’s minds. It accounts for about one death for every 327 Americans, or more than the entire population of San Francisco or Seattle.

By the time the World Health Organization (WHO) declared COVID-19 a global pandemic on March 11, 2020, the virus had claimed 36 lives in the United States. In the months that followed, the deadly virus spread like wildfire, finding fertile ground in densely populated urban areas like New York City and then reaching every corner of the country.

For June 2020the US death toll had surpassed the country’s total military deaths in World War I and would exceed US military losses from World War II by January 2021, when more than 405,000 deaths were recorded.

The disease has left few places on Earth untouched, with 6.7 million confirmed deaths worldwide. The actual number, including those who died from COVID-19 and those who died as an indirect result of the outbreak, was likely closer to 15 million, the WHO said. read more

Some of the images associated with death from COVID are forever etched in the collective minds of Americans: refrigerated trucks parked outside hospitals overflowing with the dead; intubated patients in sealed intensive care units; exhausted doctors and nurses who battled each wave of the virus.

Millions of Americans eagerly rolled up their sleeves for COVID vaccines after distribution began in late 2020. By early 2021, the virus had already claimed a staggering 500,000 lives.

At one point in January of that year, more people died from COVID-19 every day on average than died in the attacks of September 11, 2001.

COVID-19 preyed on the elderly and those in poor health, but it did not spare healthy young people either, killing more than 1,000 children. The researchers estimate 213,000 American children lost at least one parent or primary caregiver during the pandemic, which took an immeasurable emotional toll. read more

While settling in big cities, the coronavirus has also devastated rural communities with limited access to health care.

The pandemic had a disproportionate impact on Native American and communities of color. It hit hardest where people lived in congregate settings, like prisons, decimating entire families. It exposed deep-seated inequalities in American society and unleashed a wave of change that affected most aspects of life in the United States. read more

With the threat of COVID-19 receding after Omicron’s wave last winter, many Americans have taken off their masks and returned to offices in recent weeks. Restaurants and bars are bustling with customers again, and public attention has shifted to inflation and economic concerns.

But researchers are already working on another booster shot as the virus continues to mutate.

“It’s by no means over,” top US infectious disease expert Dr. Anthony Fauci said at a recent event. “We are still experiencing a global pandemic.”

PANDEMIC MONITORING

Tracking the COVID-19 pandemic is not an exact science. Reuters and the other organizations that do the math are coming up with 1 million deaths in the US at different times. The variation is due to how each organization counts COVID deaths. For example, Reuters includes both confirmed and probable deaths when that data is available.

The exact number of victims of the pandemic may never really be known. Some people who died while infected were never tested and do not appear in the data. Others, while they had COVID-19, may have died of another reason, such as cancer, but were still counted.

The CDC estimates that there have been 1.1 million excess deaths since February 1, 2020, primarily from COVID. Excess mortality is the increase in the total number of deaths, from any cause, compared to previous years.

You can read more about Reuters’ methodology for tracking COVID cases and deaths here: https://graphics.reuters.com/world-coronavirus-tracker-and-maps/en/methodology/

More information on excess deaths from the CDC can be found here: https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/nvss/vsrr/covid19/excess_deaths.htm

Information from Maria Caspani; Edited by Lisa Shumaker

Our standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.