According to an NBC News figure, a milestone that seemed unimaginable at the start of the Covid-19 pandemic a year ago would have been 400,000 deaths in the US.
More than 2 million people worldwide have been killed by the virus, according to data compiled by Johns Hopkins University. The U.S. death toll is the worst in the world, though it makes up less than 5 percent of the world’s population.
On January 21, 2020, the US confirmed its first case of the virus in Seattle.
Full coverage of coronavirus outbreak
Nearly a year later, 24 million people in the U.S. are infected, the highest number of confirmed cases in the world. According to NBC News, California on Monday became the first state to reach 3 million cases, and the province of Los Angeles exceeded 1 million cases over the weekend.
The number of fatalities is much higher than expected at the beginning of the pandemic.
Dr. Deborah Birx, the coordinator of the coronavirus in the White House, warned in April that as many as 240,000 Americans could die from coronavirus, even if the controls were “almost perfectly followed.” President Donald Trump described the estimated toll as “disillusioning”, and has since been criticized for initially downplaying the threat of the virus and then outlining the federal government’s response.
Download the NBC News app for news and politics
While U.S. health officials were vaccinating as many vulnerable people as possible, Covid-19 continued to spread at a record high rate across the country, while the United States ran the risk of new mutant virus strains spreading from the UK, Brazil , South Africa. as well as new strains emerging in the US
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, nearly 12.3 million doses of vaccines were administered in the United States on Monday.
But in California, dr. Erica Pan, state epidemiologist, recommends that suppliers suspend the administration of one dose of Moderna vaccine while investigating possible allergic reactions.
“Less than ten individuals needed medical help over 24 hours,” Pan said, adding that they were making the call “out of extreme caution and also acknowledging the extremely limited supply of vaccine.”
Elected President Joe Biden said last week that he would use the Federal Emergency Management Agency and the National Guard to help set up vaccine clinics in the U.S. as part of an ambitious plan to shoot millions of Americans.
Corky Siemaszko contributed.