(Bloomberg) -- At least 1 million people in the U.S. have died from Covid-19, according to one tally, almost 2 1/2 years into a pandemic that continues to kill hundreds of Americans every day.
The death total was marked by Johns Hopkins University, one of several organizations tracking pandemic data. The actual number of dead is almost certainly already higher, since it can take days or weeks for some Covid-19 statistics to filter in. And it doesn’t account for deaths indirectly linked to the pandemic, such as the strain put on hospital systems by the outbreak that may have caused other fatalities.
- To mark 1 million deaths, Bloomberg wrote about how measurements of the virus will need to change in the next phase of the pandemic. You can read the story in Businessweek.
Almost 300 Americans are currently dying of Covid-19 each day, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, far less than during the worst of the pandemic. In January of 2021, before the widespread deployment of vaccines, average daily deaths peaked at 3,400. And during the omicron wave that started in late winter of 2021 and extended into this year, daily deaths were about 2,700.
Since then, the U.S. has dropped many public health restrictions, such as requiring face masks on airlines and other forms of transit -- though a rise in cases and hospitalizations in places such as New York may lead to back-tracking on those policies. The country has also grappled with how to measure the pandemic and how to judge Covid risk at a time when many people are vaccinated or have been previously infected with SARS-CoV-2.
About 15 million deaths have been attributed to the pandemic across the globe, according to an estimate released May 5 by the World Health Organization that looked at fatalities brought about directly by the virus as well as secondary causes. Among countries hit hardest by the pandemic, the U.S. has one of the worst per-capita death rates, according to data compiled by Johns Hopkins.
Read more of Bloomberg’s coverage of the Covid-19 pandemic:
- About 66% of Americans are vaccinated, read the Bloomberg Vaccine Tracker to see how the U.S. stacks up against other countries
- Some countries have dealt with the virus better than others; read our Covid Resilience Ranking
- For all of Bloomberg’s Covid data around the world, click here
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