US Coronavirus Death Toll Tops 100k

By Staff, Agencies

More than 100,000 Americans have died following the nation's coronavirus outbreak, accounting for more than a quarter of all Covid-19-related deaths amid a global pandemic that has infected more than 5 million people, according to data from Johns Hopkins University.

Within only four months from the onset of the US outbreak, more Americans have died from coronavirus-related illness than from decades of conflicts in Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan combined.

US deaths have more than doubled within the last month, when the public health crisis reached 50,000 deaths on 24 April, one of the deadliest months in US history that saw the deaths of nearly 60,000 people by its end.

The grim marker stands in devastating contrast to the death tolls in other developed countries, while US President Donald Trump's shifting predictions, varying wildly from "zero" new infections to "hopefully" less than 100,000 deaths, have been eclipsed by a growing number of deaths that experts believe undercounts the lives lost from the virus.

On 15 May, the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention had projected the death toll would reach 100,000 by 1 June.

Analysts predicted that 100,000 Americans would die by mid-May following the CDC's release of "excess deaths" counts comparing observed deaths from all causes with historical trends.

Based on that data, a research team at the Yale School of Public Health estimated that the number of deaths was estimated to be about 1.5 times higher than officially reported figures.

More than 1.6 million people in the US have been infected with Covid-19, according to data from Johns Hopkins University.