COVID-19 has now claimed the lives of more than 5 million people worldwide. According to Johns Hopkins University, as of this writing, COVID has killed 5,005,344 out of nearly a quarter billion cases (247,118,535) representing a mortality rate of just over 2%.
There is some good news in that deaths have slowed significantly. It took 82 days for the global COVID death toll go from 3,000,000 to 4,000,000 deaths. Whereas it has taken 117 days to get from 4,000,000 to 5,000,000 deaths - exactly five weeks longer.
It is well worth noting there are six countries in the world that have death tolls exceeding 200,000 - the U.S., Brazil, India, Mexico, Russia and Peru. Together they account for more than half the COVID deaths globally. I get these other countries being at the top of the list with their combined legacy of corruption and life being nasty, brutish and short under the best of circumstances.
But there's no reason for the U.S. on this list at all with our cutting edge health care and access to vaccines. And yet the U.S. remains worse of all as it nears 750,000 deaths (746,977). While it's claim of the global share has dropped to just under 15% (14.9%) and the Biden White House have endeavored to get the country vaccinated a great many Americans still refuse to get vaccinated and are willing to lose their livelihoods if not their very lives including healthcare workers. We are our own worst enemy.
Today, the United States also topped 46 million cases (46,089,316) and continues to have a mortality rate of 1.6%. It did take a full two weeks to add 1 million cases, a modest improvement on the 12 days it took to go from 44 to 45 million cases. But can we sustain even this modest improvement through Thanksgiving, Christmas and the accompanying winter weather? Too many among us would rather say Let's Go Brandon than let's get better.
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