The tragic milestone of the 900.000 deaths of patients due to its complications was exceeded yesterday, Friday COVID-19, according to data collected by Johns Hopkins University.
The country was surpassing the macabre milestone of 800.000 deaths due to the new coronavirus pandemic in mid-December, just a month and a half ago.
Last month the country was hit by a wave of infections attributed to the most contagious Omicron variant of SARS-CoV-2. The cases reached record levels.
Omicron infections are currently declining, but the death toll continues to rise, averaging 2.400 a day, according to US health officials.
And the number of hospital admissions "remains high, pushing to the limit our ability to provide medical care and health care staff in some areas," Rossel Wallensky, director of the Centers for Control, told a news conference Wednesday. Disease Prevention (CDC), the main federal public health service.
The rise of the death curve tends to follow, a few weeks later, the outbreaks of cases, which explains the apparent inconsistency between the two indicators.
"Today, our country has passed another tragic milestone," was the reaction of US President Joe Biden, who paid tribute to the 900.000 missing Americans and their families.
"We now have more tools than ever to save lives and fight this virus," he added, calling on his countrymen once again to be vaccinated or to receive a booster dose.
Deaths continue to rise at an alarming rate despite the provision of free, effective and widely available vaccines against COVID-19 in the US, where only 64% of the population has been fully vaccinated.
In absolute terms, the United States remains the country with the highest number of pandemic victims, ahead of Brazil and India, according to official government reports.
The health crisis has officially claimed the lives of at least 5,7 million people worldwide since the end of December 2019, according to estimates by the French Agency as of yesterday Friday at noon.
But, as the World Health Organization (WHO) has repeatedly pointed out, in reality the casualties are probably doubled, if not tripled.
Source: RES-EAP