The US was on the eve of a once-unthinkable count on Sunday: 500,000 people lost to the corona virus.
A year after the pandemic, the total number of lives lost was about 498,000 – roughly the population of Kansas City, Missouri, and not nearly as large as Atlanta. The figure compiled by Johns Hopkins University exceeds the number of people who died in 2019 of chronic lower respiratory tract disease, stroke, Alzheimer’s, flu and pneumonia combined.
“It’s not like we’ve ever experienced in the past 102 years since the 1918 flu pandemic,” said Dr. Anthony Fauci, top infectious disease expert, on CNN’s “State of the Union.”
The death toll from the American virus was 400,000 on Jan. 19 in the waning hours in office of President Donald Trump, whose handling of the crisis was seen by public health experts as a particular failure.
The nation could pass this next grim milestone on Monday. President Joe Biden will mark the US crossing the 500,000 lives lost from COVID-19 with a moment of silence and a candlelit ceremony in the White House.
Biden will make comments at sunset to honor the dead, the White House said. He is expected to be joined by First Lady Jill Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris and her husband, Doug Emhoff.
The first known deaths from the virus in the US occurred in early February 2020, both in Santa Clara County, California. It took four months to reach the first 100,000 deaths. The toll was 200,000 dead in September and 300,000 in DecemberThen it took a little over a month to go from 300,000 to 400,000 and about two months to climb from 400,000 to the edge of 500,000.
Joyce Willis of Las Vegas is one of countless Americans who lost family members in the pandemic. Her husband, Anthony Willis, died on December 28, followed by her mother-in-law in early January.
Frightened calls came from the IC when her husband was admitted to hospital. She couldn’t see him until he died because she too had the virus and couldn’t visit.
“They’re gone. Your lover is gone, but you’re still alive,” Willis said. “It’s like you still have to get up every morning. You have to take care of your kids and make a living. There’s no way around it. You just have to get up. continue. “
Then came a nightmare scenario of caring for her father-in-law as she dealt with grief, arranging funerals, paying bills, helping her kids navigate the online school, and figuring out how to get back to work as an occupational therapist.
Her father-in-law, a Vietnam vet, also contracted the virus. He also suffered from respiratory problems and died on February 8. The family is unsure whether COVID-19 contributed to his death.
“Some days I feel okay and other days I feel like I’m strong and I can do this,” she said. And then on other days it just hits me. My whole world is turned upside down. “
According to Johns Hopkins, the worldwide death toll was approaching nearly 2.5 million.
While the census 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 cases that were initially inaccurately attributed to other causes.
Despite efforts to administer coronavirus vaccines, a much-cited model from the University of Washington projects that the US death toll will exceed 589,000 by June 1.
“People will be talking about these decades and decades and decades from now,” Fauci said on NBC’s “Meet The Press.”
Associated Press author Heather Hollingsworth in Kansas City, Missouri, contributed to this report.