WASHINGTON: The United States on Monday (Feb 22) crossed the staggering milestone of 500,000 COVID-19 deaths just over a year after the coronavirus pandemic claimed its first known victim in the country.
The US had recorded more than 28 million COVID-19 cases and 500,054 lives lost as of Monday afternoon, according to a Reuters tally of public health data, although daily cases and hospitalisations have fallen to the lowest level since before the Thanksgiving and Christmas holidays.
About 19 per cent of total global COVID-19 deaths have occurred in the US, an outsized figure given that the nation accounts for just 4 per cent of the world's population.
The US also has one of the highest rates of deaths per 100,000 residents, exceeded by only a few countries such as Belgium, the United Kingdom and Italy.
With total deaths above 500,000, one in every 673 US residents has succumbed to the pandemic.
"These numbers are stunning," Dr Anthony Fauci, a top infectious-disease adviser to President Joe Biden told ABC News' Good Morning America programme. "If you look back historically, we've done worse than almost any other country, and we're a highly developed, rich country."
The country's poor performance reflects the lack of a unified, national response last year, when the administration of former president Donald Trump mostly left states to their own devices in tackling the greatest public health crisis in a century, with Trump often in conflict with his own health experts.
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Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris are set to commemorate the huge loss of life due to COVID-19 later on Monday during an event at the White House that will include a speech by the president, a moment of silence and a candle-lighting ceremony.
Biden will also order that US flags on federal property be lowered to half-staff for five days, White House spokeswoman Jen Psaki told reporters.
The National Cathedral in Washington will also toll its bells 500 times on Monday evening to honour the lives lost to COVID-19 in a livestream event, according to a notice on its website.
In 2020, the virus has taken a full year off the average life expectancy in the US, the biggest decline since World War II.
Sweeping through the country at the beginning of last year, the US epidemic had claimed its first 100,000 lives by May.
The death toll doubled by September as the virus ebbed and surged during the summer months.
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Pandemic-weary Americans, like so many around the world, grappled with the mountain of loss brought by COVID-19 as health experts warned of yet another coronavirus resurgence during the upcoming fall and winter months.
Americans lost mothers and fathers, husbands and wives, brothers, sisters and friends to the virus. For many, the grief was amplified by the inability to see loved ones in hospitals or nursing homes and by the physical distancing imposed by authorities to curb the spread of the virus.
By December, the death toll had reached 300,000 as the US entered a deadly post-holiday season that would claim 230,000 lives in the span of less than three months.
With numbers that made the appalling toll early in the pandemic pale by comparison, deaths recorded between December and February accounted for 46 per cent of all US COVID-19 fatalities, even as vaccines finally became available and a monumental effort to inoculate the American public got underway.
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Despite the grim milestone, the virus appears to have loosened its grip as COVID-19 cases in United States fell for the sixth consecutive week.
However, health experts have warned that coronavirus variants initially discovered in Britain, South Africa and Brazil could unleash another wave that threatens to reverse the recent positive trends.
Fauci cautioned against complacency and urged Americans to continue public health measures such as wearing masks, physical distancing and avoiding crowds while officials race to inoculate the population, particularly with these more contagious new variants circulating.
"We've got be really careful and not just say, 'OK we're finished now, we're through it,'" he told ABC.
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2021-02-22 20:35:30Z
CBMiWWh0dHBzOi8vd3d3LmNoYW5uZWxuZXdzYXNpYS5jb20vbmV3cy93b3JsZC9jb3ZpZC0xOS11cy1tb3VybnMtNTAwLTAwMC1saXZlcy1sb3N0LTE0MjU5NTIy0gEA
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