Coronavirus: Grim milestone as US death toll reaches 200,000

The US has passed the tragic milestone of 200,000 deaths from COVID-19, as public health officials rush to ­secure a vaccine.

There are now 200,000 flags planted at the National Mall in Washington — one for every person who has died of COVID-19 in America. Picture: AFP

The US has passed the tragic milestone of 200,000 deaths from COVID-19, as public health officials rush to ­secure a vaccine.

The country leads the world in both confirmed cases and deaths, ­according to Johns Hopkins University, with more than 6.8 million cases reported.

The toll was reached after 52,000 new cases were reported on Monday (Tuesday AEST), ­although just under 22,000 of those came from a backlog of data in Texas.

“It is completely unfathomable that we’ve reached this point,” said Jennifer Nuzzo, a public health researcher at Johns Hopkins.

Daily deaths have generally been falling since early August, but at a slow rate. On Monday the seven-day average of new daily deaths was 770. It was 879 on September 1.

The US has less than 5 per cent of the world’s population but more than 20 per cent of the ­reported deaths, although the rates at which cases are being ­detected varies greatly around the globe.

Ten countries have higher death rates per capita than the US, including Britain.

“The idea of 200,000 deaths is really very sobering, in some ­respects stunning,” Anthony Fauci, the top government virus expert, told CNN.

The figures compiled by Johns Hopkins are higher than the World Health Organisation’s, in part because the former includes presumptive positive cases: those that have been confirmed at state or local level, but not necessarily at a national level.

Donald Trump has frequently suggested that a vaccine may ­appear within weeks, perhaps even shortly before the November 3 presidential election, prompting fears among some Democrats that public health agencies will feel compelled to rush approval through.

In an interview on Tuesday, Mr Trump boasted of having done an “amazing” and “incredible” job combating the pandemic.

“The only thing we’ve done a bad job in is public relations ­because we haven’t been able to convince people — which is basically the fake news — what a great job we’ve done,” he said.

The outlook in the US appears to be getting worse, with the country’s caseload growing again. While the death rate is slowing, the seven-day average of new cases on Monday was 41,101, up from 35,065 only a week before.  The rise is not fuelled only by urban and coastal areas, as it was early in the pandemic. Some of the fastest-rising caseloads are in Wisconsin, Montana and North Dakota, states in the middle of the country.

Many towns and cities with universities have also experienced a jump in cases since the autumn term began earlier this month or last month in some ­instances.

Some experts fear that as flu season begins to bite, the climate cools and people spend more time inside, there will be a spike in cases.

“Those are the things that I get concerned about as we get into October and November and ­December,” Dr Fauci said.

“I’d like to see us go into that at such a low level that when you have the inevitable cases you can handle them.”

The Times