The U.S. nears 500,000 virus deaths
More Americans have died of Covid-19 than on the battlefields of World War I, World War II and the Vietnam War combined. No other country has counted so many deaths in the pandemic.
As of this writing, the U.S. toll stood at 497,403, about a fifth of the known global toll — roughly one year since the country’s first confirmed Covid-19 death. The coronavirus has reached every corner of the U.S., devastating dense cities and rural counties alike, and has killed about one in 670 people in the country. Virus variants are an increasing threat and grief is widespread.
“When I go inside, it’s a surreal moment and there’s always this hope,” said Ignacio Silverio, who lost his sister, a restaurant owner, to Covid. “You know, maybe it’s all a dream and she would greet me and we would sit down together and drink coffee.”
The harrowing milestone nevertheless comes at a hopeful moment. New virus cases are down sharply, deaths are slowing, and vaccinations are picking up after a week in which much of the country was staggered by winter storms. President Biden said the U.S. could near normalcy by year’s end, though Dr. Anthony Fauci, the country’s top epidemiologist, said that mask-wearing might be necessary into 2022.
Here are the latest updates and maps of the pandemic.
In other developments:
■ Australia began vaccinating its population against the coronavirus on Sunday, with Prime Minister Scott Morrison and 19 others getting their shots. The first to be vaccinated was an 84-year-old woman who lives in a nursing home.
■ People in Canada are calling out not just politicians and doctors for breaking coronavirus rules, but also their own relatives and neighbors. So-called snitch lines have been flooded with tips.
■ As new variants of the coronavirus spread rapidly, countries in Europe are moving to reintroduce border controls, a practice that is chipping away at what was once the world’s largest area of free movement.
the New York Times