Over 1,200 deaths a day: How Covid pandemic ravaged US in 2 years

NEW DELHI: Nearly 21 months after reporting its first

Covid

death, the US has reached the grim milestone of 800,000 fatalities due to the virus even as the threat continues to loom over large swathes of its unvaccinated population.

The country, which has reported over 50 million Covid cases and is the worst hit in the world, has lost more lives to the virus this year than in 2020 due to the more contagious Delta variant and people refusing to get vaccinated.

The death toll has now exceeded the entire population of the state of North Dakota.

Here's how the pandemic has ravaged one of the most powerful countries in the world ...
Over 1,200 deaths every day
Since reporting its first official death, the US on average has lost approximately 1,225 people to Covid every day.



The deaths this year were mostly in unvaccinated patients, health experts say.

Worryingly, deaths have increased despite advances in caring for Covid patients and new treatment options such as monoclonal antibodies.

Overall, US has the highest number of reported

Covid deaths

in the world, followed by Brazil and India.



With just 4% of the world's population, the country accounts for about 14% of all reported Covid-19 deaths and 19% of cases worldwide.

The Delta variant remains the dominant version of the virus in US, which means that it has caused a majority of the deaths this year.

Moreover, there are renewed concerns of further spike in cases due to the spread of the more transmissible Omicron variant. As per the latest reported figures, US has 43 cases of Omicron so far, spread across 22 states.

The country has not yet reported any death due to the Omicron variant.

The deadliest months
A majority of Covid-related deaths happened during the deadly third wave of the pandemic, which struck the US earlier this year and led to a record surge of nearly 3 lakh daily cases.



According to figures compiled from ourworldindata.org, the country reported almost 100,000 deaths in the month of January alone.

The number of deaths declined gradually with the third wave ebbing and vaccinations gathering pace. However, the months of September and October again witnessed a surge in deaths, largely due to a Delta-driven spread and a large number of people remaining unvaccinated.

In fact, before vaccinations started, it took the US just over two months to add a whopping 200,000 deaths to its tally during the third wave of infections.



The pace gradually declined.

It took 107 days for US deaths to jump from 600,000 to 700,000. But the next 100,000 deaths took just 73 days.

Worst-hit states


Compared to the northern states, the country's south has witnessed the most deaths per capita.

In 2021, states like Alabama, Georgia, Florida, Kentucky, Oklahoma, Mississippi, South Carolina and West Virginia were some of the worst-hit in terms of fatalities.

With 223 deaths per 100,000, Alabama reported the most per capita deaths in the country.

Comparatively, the north (Vermont, Maine, etc) and Midwest (Minnesota, Nebraska) reported fewer per capita deaths.

Further analysis shows that vaccination has greatly helped in reducing Covid morbidity across the country.

According to US government data, roughly 60% of the country's population has been fully vaccinated against Covid



A state-level look at the data shows that places where vaccination rates are high have reported fewer deaths compared to places which are lagging in inoculations.
High per capita deaths, low CFR


According to a Reuters analysis, the US has one of the worst per capita deaths in the world.

Other countries have lost far fewer lives per capita in the past 11 months.

Among the

Group of Seven

(G7) wealthiest nations, the United States ranks the worst in terms of per capita deaths from Covid-19 between January 1 and November 30, according to the Reuters analysis.

The death rate in the United States was more than three times higher than in neighboring Canada and 11 times more than Japan. Even neighbouring Mexico has a lower per capita death rate.

When compared with the European Union, the United States has 1.3 times the per capita deaths reported in the last 11 months than the entire bloc.

Among the wealthier nations, New Zealand had the lowest per capita Covid deaths.

However, when it comes to case fatality rate, the US has done better than several other nations



Case fatality rate or CFR refers to the number of people succumbing to the virus out of the total infected. The US has a CFR of 1.6, which means that out of 200 people getting infected, roughly 3 people died of the virus.

Currently, Mexico has the worst CFR at 7.6% based on officially reported data.

(With inputs from Reuters)