Today, the United States topped 450,000 dead due to COVID-19. According to Johns Hopkins University, 450,200 Americans have succumbed to COVID-19 out of a total of 26,543,209 cases. The mortality rate remains at 1.7%.
As remarkable as those numbers are what is even more staggering is that there have been 100,000 COVID-19 deaths in exactly one month. On January 3rd, the U.S. COVID-19 death toll topped 350,000. As I observed at the time, it took 46 days for the COVID-19 death toll to go from 250,000 to 350,000. This time around it only took 31 days for the death toll to go from 350,000 to 450,000. Last December, Former CDC Director Dr. Robert Redfield said, "I do think, unfortunately, before we see February, we could be close to 450,000 Americans have died from this virus." Well, both February and 450,000 dead Americans due to COVID-19 have arrived on schedule.
Let me put it another way. More than a fifth of all the Americans who have died of COVID-19 passed away in exactly one month. While the number of COVID-19 cases is beginning to slow, the number of deaths has now accelerated. Could our mortality rate climb back up over 2%?
Last week, new CDC Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky predicted the death toll would reach 514,000 by February 20th - the one month anniversary of the Biden presidency. If Dr. Walensky is right then 64,000 more Americans will die of COVID-19 in the next 17 days. Of course, given that it took 15 fewer days to add 100,000 to the death toll it is quite possible her prediction might be too cautious.
There is no other way to say it, but even with vaccines available, the worst is yet to come.
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