The US death toll from the coronavirus eclipsed 400,000 on Tuesday, local time, in the waning hours in office for President Donald Trump, whose handling of the crisis has been judged by public health experts a singular failure.
The running total of lives lost, as compiled by Johns Hopkins University, is nearly equal to the number of Americans killed in World II. It is about the population of Tulsa, Oklahoma; Tampa, Florida; or New Orleans. It is equivalent to the sea of humanity that was at Woodstock in 1969.
Medics intubate a gravely ill patient with COVID-19 symptoms at his home in New York in April 2020.Credit:Getty Images
It is just short of the estimated 409,000 Americans who died in 2019 of strokes, Alzheimer’s, diabetes, flu and pneumonia combined.
And the virus isn’t finished with the US by any means, even with the arrival of the vaccines that could finally vanquish the outbreak: A widely cited model by the University of Washington projects the death toll will reach nearly 567,000 by May 1.
