In Brief

US reaches staggering milestone — 200,000 COVID-19 deaths

Nurses and healthcare workers mourn and remember their colleagues who died of COVID-19 during a demonstration outside Mount Sinai Hospital in Manhattan on April 10, 2020.
Nurses and healthcare workers mourn and remember their colleagues who died of COVID-19 during a demonstration outside Mount Sinai Hospital in Manhattan on April 10, 2020. (Image credit: JOHANNES EISELE/AFP via Getty Images)

The coronavirus pandemic has reached another bleak milestone in the United States: More than 200,000 people have died of COVID-19 in the country as of Tuesday (Sept. 22), according to Johns Hopkins University.

After the virus first appeared in the U.S. in late January, it took four months to reach the first 100,000 deaths, which was reported on May 27, and another four months to reach the second 100,000 deaths, according to Bloomberg.

COVID-19 is on track to be the third leading cause of death in the U.S. in 2020, behind heart disease and cancer, according to the National Safety Council (NSC). In August, U.S. COVID-19 deaths surpassed the number of accidental deaths (which include those from overdoses, motor vehicle crashes and falls) for 2018, the most recent year that final death data is available, the NSC said. Accidental deaths have been the third leading cause of death in the U.S. since 2016.

The high number of COVID-19 deaths in the U.S. is a "reflection of a failing national response," Dr. Tom Frieden, former director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), told CNN last week. Frieden noted that the actual number of COVID-19 deaths in the U.S. is higher than the reported tally. Data from the CDC show that there have been between 202,000 and 263,000 excess deaths in the U.S. since February, according to Bloomberg. Excess deaths refers to the number of deaths beyond what would be expected based on historical trends.

"These are lives that have been lost and jobs that have been lost because we haven't had an organized, consistent, coherent federal response," Frieden told CNN.

The U.S. has reported more COVID-19 deaths than anywhere else in the world, at 200,005 deaths, followed by Brazil, with 137,272 deaths, and India, with 88,935 deaths, according to Johns Hopkins University. The U.S. also leads the world in COVID-19 cases, with 6.8 million cases.

Originally published on Live Science.  

Rachael Rettner
Contributor

Rachael is a Live Science contributor, and was a former channel editor and senior writer for Live Science between 2010 and 2022. She has a master's degree in journalism from New York University's Science, Health and Environmental Reporting Program. She also holds a B.S. in molecular biology and an M.S. in biology from the University of California, San Diego. Her work has appeared in Scienceline, The Washington Post and Scientific American.

  • sarita
    admin said:
    It took eight months to reach 200,000 deaths.

    US reaches staggering milestone — 200,000 COVID-19 deaths : Read more

    How many of those were people who died of other illnesses, but happened to have been "exposed" to Covid? Isn't it vitally important to know that in order to know the real fatalities associated with Covid?
    Reply
  • Chem721
    sarita said:
    How many of those were people who died of other illnesses, but happened to have been "exposed" to Covid? Isn't it vitally important to know that in order to know the real fatalities associated with Covid?

    It is just as likely that some Covid fatalities have not been counted for various reasons. There has been a push in some areas, and not just in the U.S., to minimize the actual threat, and that is best projected by influencing the news with questionable data. In the misinformation biz, this is known as counter-intelligence.

    As quoted from the article:

    "Data from the CDC show that there have been between 202,000 and 263,000 excess deaths in the U.S. since February, according to Bloomberg. Excess deaths refers to the number of deaths beyond what would be expected based on historical trends."

    end quote

    When someone is calling for less testing, it is to bring down the positive numbers, to make things look better than they really are. Of course this leads to a false sense of security - that everything is going to be just fine - which naturally leads to more infections. This is from the "less-data-is-better" school of thought.

    The experts tell us to do a lot of testing and tracing to minimize the spread and bring this to an end. That is the "more-data-is-better" school of thought, and, incidentally comes from those experts who went to a number of schools and got Ph.D.s and M.D.s, or both. They think a lot, so their "school of thought" is much more rational and precise, and why it should be followed. These same experts have also been right about a lot of things in the past, which grants them considerable credibility.

    It should be obvious that "more-data-is-better" is likely to hit the top of the charts in favorability ratings when the "best course of action" is to be considered.
    Reply