The United States will this week surpass one million deaths associated with the COVID-19 pandemic, the world’s wealthiest country with the largest recorded global case number and death toll.
This threshold comes as the World Health Organisation released a report on Thursday estimating that nearly 15 million people were either killed by the coronavirus or by its impacts on health systems over the past two years.
Despite an over-supply of vaccines and greater access to therapeutics, the United States currently has a 7-day average of 568 deaths per day with concerns that those numbers will begin to ebb upwards amid growing complacency just as the warmer months arrive in the northern hemisphere.
Until the war in Ukraine, COVID-19 was the war at home in United States, one that has dominated the news cycle and life in general for most of the last 26 months.
Deaths declining since the last peak in February where over 2 500 deaths on average were recorded per day with concerns that a new wave could be on the horizon.
US President’s Chief Medical Advisor Dr Anthony Fauci says, “We are no longer in that fulminant acute phase, that does not mean that the pandemic is over. By no means is it over.”
“ We still are experiencing a global pandemic. When you talk about getting it to a level of control, a level of control really is no when you have tens of thousands of hospitalizations and you have a thousand or more to three thousand deaths, it’s when you get those levels low enough that it really is not disrupting. You don’t overwhelm the hospital. It isn’t a fearful threat throughout society. But there are going to be infections in the community. I don’t think we’re going to completely eliminate that,” He adds.
Vaccinated
The United States now boasts 66.7% of the population fully vaccinated or around 220 million people.
Roughly a third of that number or 20% of the entire population has received a third booster shot with a fourth booster now available to immunocompromised individuals and people over the age of 50, with overwhelming evidence that vaccines help prevent death and hospitalisations even though breakthrough infections and death can still occur due to the emergence of new variants and waning immunity.
In a country where early missteps led to places like New York City peaking at 800 deaths per day even as the lockdown sought to limit the carnage, refrigerator trucks parked outside hospitals as morgues were overrun.
Adding fuel to the fire, growing misinformation and the politicization of the pandemic.
However, more than two years later, tourists have returned to cities, restaurants are doing a roaring trade while a judge in April struck down the federal government’s nationwide mask mandate for public transit, a matter the justice department is appealing.
World Health Organisation’s Dr Mike Ryan says, “It’s a country where everyone knows someone affected by COVID-19 – there’ve been many funerals, many unexpected goodbyes, and the trauma of being a frontline worker in the face of overwhelming fatigue, grief and despair. As the country approaches the once incomprehensible figure of one million deaths mitigation remains key at a time where pandemic fatigue and rising case numbers could bring cold comfort to those seeking to turn the page on this entire chapter.”
VIDEO: WHO updates media on the latest COVID-19 pandemic:
