The United States was on Sunday on the verge of a previously unthinkable count: 500,000 people lost to the coronavirus.
A year after the pandemic began, the continued total number of lives lost was about 498,000 – roughly the population of Kansas City, Missouri, and almost the size of Atlanta. The number compiled by Johns Hopkins University exceeds the number of people who died in 2019 from chronic respiratory diseases, stroke, Alzheimer’s, influenza and pneumonia combined.
“It is nothing like we have been in the past 102 years since the 1918 flu pandemic,” said the country’s leading infectious disease expert, Dr. Anthony Fauci, on CNN’s “State of the Union”.
The number of virus deaths in the USA has reached 400,000 on January 19, in the last hours in the post of President Donald Trump, whose management of the crisis was considered by public health experts to be a singular failure.
The nation could pass this next gloomy milestone on Monday. President Joe Biden will mark the crossing of the United States with 500,000 lives lost in COVID-19 with a moment of silence and a candle lighting ceremony in the White House.
Biden will comment on the sunset to honor the dead, the White House said. He is 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 number reached 200,000 deaths in September and 300,000 in December. So it took just over a month to go from 300,000 to 400,000 and about two months to go from 400,000 to the edge of 500,000.
Joyce Willis of Las Vegas is among the countless Americans who lost relatives during the pandemic. Her husband, Anthony Willis, died on December 28, followed by his mother-in-law in early January.
There were anxious calls from the ICU when her husband was hospitalized. She was unable to see him before he died because she also had the virus and was unable to visit him.
“They’re gone. Your loved one is gone, but you’re still alive,” said Willis. “It’s like you still have to get up every morning. You have to take care of your kids and make a living. There is no way to get around that. You just have to move on. “
Then came a nightmare scenario of taking care of your father-in-law while dealing with pain, organizing funerals, paying bills, helping your children navigate school online and figuring out how to get back to work as an occupational therapist.
Her father-in-law, a Vietnam veterinarian, also contracted the virus. He also suffered from breathing problems and died on February 8. The family is unsure whether COVID-19 contributed to his death.
“Some days I feel good and some days I feel strong and I can do that,” she said. “And then, other days, it just hits me. My whole world is upside down. “
The global death toll was approaching 2.5 million, according to Johns Hopkins.
Although the count is based on figures provided by government agencies around the world, the actual death toll is believed to be significantly higher, in part due to inadequate testing and inaccurately attributed cases to other causes at the outset.
Despite efforts to administer coronavirus vaccines, a model widely cited by the University of Washington projects that the number of deaths in the United States will exceed 589,000 on June 1.
“People will be talking about these decades and decades and decades from now,” said Fauci on NBC’s “Meet The Press” program.
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Associated Press writer Heather Hollingsworth in Kansas City, Missouri contributed to this report.