The US stood on the brink of a once unimaginable count on Sunday: 500,000 people lost due to the coronavirus.
A year after the pandemic, the total number of lives lost was about 498,000 – about the population of Kansas City, Missouri, and just shy of the size of Atlanta. The figure compiled by Johns Hopkins University surpasses the number of people who died in 2019 from chronic lower respiratory illnesses, stroke, Alzheimer’s, flu and pneumonia.
“It’s nothing like what we’ve been through for the last 102 years since the flu pandemic in 1918,” said Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nation’s largest expert on infectious diseases, said on CNN’s “State of the Union.”
The US death toll on viruses has reached 400,000 on January 19 in the waning hours in office for President Donald Trump, whose handling of the crisis was seen by exceptional public health experts as an exceptional failure.
The country could pass this next gloomy milestone on Monday. President Joe Biden will cross the US 500,000 lives lost by COVID-19 with a moment of silence and candlelight at the White House.
Biden will make remarks at sunset to honor the dead, the White House said. He is expected to join First Lady Jill Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris and her husband, Doug Emhoff.
The first known deaths due to the virus in the US occurred in early February 2020, both in Santa Clara County, California. It took four months to reach the first 100,000 dead. The toll hit 200,000 deaths in September and 300,000 in December. Then it takes just over a month to go from 300,000 to 400,000 and about two months to climb from 400,000 to the edge of 500,000.
Joyce Willis of Las Vegas is among the countless Americans who lost family members during the pandemic. Her husband, Anthony Willis, passed away on December 28, followed by her mother-in-law in early January.
There were frightening calls from the ICU when her husband was admitted to the hospital. She could not see him until he died because she also had the virus and could not visit.
“They’re gone. Your loved one is gone, but you are still alive, ”said Willis. ‘It’s like you still have to get up every morning. You need to take care of your children and make a living. There is no way around it. You just have to move on. ”
Then there is a nightmare scenario of looking after her father-in-law while dealing with grief, arranging funerals, paying bills, helping her children navigate online school and finding out how they can work as an occupational therapist again.
Her father-in-law, a veterinarian in Vietnam, also contracted the virus. He also suffered from breathing problems and died on February 8th. The family is not sure if COVID-19 contributed to his death.
“Some days I feel OK, and other days I feel strong and I can do it,” she said. “And then other days it just hits me. My whole world is upside down. ”
The world death toll was closer to 2.5 million, according to Johns Hopkins.
Although the score is based on figures provided by government agencies around the world, the actual death toll is believed to be significantly higher, in part due to inadequate tests and cases that were early and inaccurately attributed to other causes.
Despite efforts to administer coronavirus vaccines, a model commonly cited by the University of Washington would surpass the U.S. death toll by June 1, 589,000.
“People will be talking about this for decades and decades and decades from now,” Fauci said on NBC’s “Meet The Press.”
___
Associated Press Writer Heather Hollingsworth in Kansas City, Missouri, contributed to this report.