US Covid death toll tops 8 lakh, a year into vaccine drive

The US death toll from Covid-19 topped 800,000 on Tuesday. The figure is doubly tragic, given that more than 200,000 of those lives were lost after the vaccine became available.

The number of deaths, as compiled by Johns Hopkins University, is about equal to the population of Atlanta and St. Louis combined. It is roughly equivalent to how many Americans die each year from heart disease or stroke.

The United States has the highest reported toll of any country. The US accounts for approximately 4% of the world's population but about 15% of the 5.3 million known deaths from the coronavirus.

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The true death toll in the US and around the world is believed to be significantly higher because of cases that were overlooked or concealed.

A closely watched forecasting model from the University of Washington projects a total of over 880,000 reported deaths in the U.S. by March 1.

About 200 million Americans are fully vaccinated, or just over 60% of the population. That is well short of what scientists say is needed to keep the virus in check.

Health experts lament that many of the deaths in the United States were especially heartbreaking because they were preventable by way of the vaccine, which became available in mid-December a year ago and was thrown open to all adults by mid-April of this year.