Covid-19 death toll in America surpasses 700,000

The toll is roughly equivalent to the population of the nation’s capital Washington.

The vaccination campaign launched by US authorities in December has slowed considerably. Picture: AFP

US fatalities from Covid-19 surpassed 700,000 on Friday, according to figures from Johns Hopkins University. The toll is roughly equivalent to the population of the nation’s capital, Washington.

The grim threshold comes with an average of well over 1000 dying each day in a country where 55.7 per cent of the population is now fully vaccinated, according to the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention.

After a heavily criticised early response to the pandemic, the US organised an effective vaccine rollout – only to have a significant portion of Americans still refuse to get the shots.

The US finds itself having notched the most fatalities in the world, far exceeding other frontrunners such as Brazil and India, and facing a resurgence in cases due to the prominence of the highly contagious Delta variant.

The vaccination campaign launched by US authorities in December – which had reached a peak in April, with sometimes more than four million injections per day – has meanwhile slowed considerably. Coronavirus misinformation has been rampant in the country, and masking remains a political issue dividing many Americans.

Some Republican governors, such as those in Texas and Florida, have sought to ban mandatory masking in their states, citing individual freedoms. The Democrat state of California, on the other hand, announced on Friday that Covid vaccinations would be compulsory for students.

AFP