The staggering number of coronavirus dead in the United States — 200,000 — is equivalent to a 9/11 attack every day for 67 days or around 600 fatal jetliner crashes. It is roughly equal to the population of Salt Lake City, Utah or Huntsville, Alabama.
“It is completely unfathomable that we’ve reached this point,” a Johns Hopkins University public health researcher said, eight months after the scourge first reached the world’s richest nation.
And while virus deaths in the U.S. continue at close to 770 a day on average, a widely cited model from the University of Washington predicts the U.S. toll will double to 400,000 by the end of the year as schools and colleges reopen and cold weather sets in, reports Carla K. Johnson. A vaccine is unlikely to become widely available until 2021.
The once-unimaginable grim milestone came six weeks before an election that is certain to be in part a referendum on President Donald Trump’s handling of the crisis.
Trump said it was “a shame” the U.S. reached 200,000 deaths but claimed the toll could have been much worse. “I think if we didn’t do it properly and do it right, you’d have 2.5 million deaths,” the president said.
