Death Cases Due To COVID-19 In The US Reaches 800,000 People, Delta Variant Is The Most Dominant

Illustration of COVID-19 in the United States. (Wikimedia Commons/The National Guard)

JAKARTA - The United States on Sunday hit 800,000 Coronavirus-related deaths, according to a Reuters tally, as the country braced for a potential spike in infections, due to more time spent indoors due to winter and the threat of the Omicron variant.

This makes the death toll from the Coronavirus in the US currently exceeds the entire population of North Dakota. Despite having widespread and easily accessible vaccine stocks, the United States has lost more lives to COVID-19 than last year, as the Delta variant is more contagious and people refuse to vaccinate.

13, since the start of the year, more than 450,000 people in the United States have died after contracting COVID-19, or 57 percent of all US deaths from the disease since the pandemic began.

This year's deaths have mostly occurred in unvaccinated patients, health experts say. Deaths have been rising despite advances in treating COVID-19 patients and new treatment options such as monoclonal antibodies.

It took 111 days for US deaths to jump from 600,000 to 700,000, according to a Reuters analysis. Meanwhile, the next 100,000 deaths only took 73 days. While citing Worldometers, the death toll from COVID-19 in the US has reached 817,955 people, with a total of 50,801,212 cases of infection and 40,003,526 recovered patients.

Meanwhile, other countries have lost far fewer lives per capita in the past 11 months, according to a Reuters analysis.

Among the wealthiest Group of Seven (G7) countries, the United States ranked worst in terms of deaths per capita from COVID-19 between January 1 and November 30, according to a Reuters analysis. The death rate in the United States is more than three times higher than in neighboring Canada and 11 times more than Japan.

Even when the United States is compared to the large pool of rich countries that have access to vaccines, it ranks close to the bottom. Among the 38 members of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), the United States ranks 30th. Only Hungary, Slovakia, Czech Republic, Lithuania, Latvia, Colombia, Poland, and Slovenia have more deaths per capita from COVID-19. New Zealand recorded the fewest deaths.

When compared to the European Union, the United States has 1.3 times more deaths per capita reported in the past 11 months than the entire bloc. Among more than 200 countries and territories tracked by Reuters, the United States ranks 36th.

The United States has the highest total number of reported COVID-19 deaths in the world, followed by Brazil and India, according to a Reuters tally. With just 4 percent of the world's population, the country accounts for about 14 percent of all reported COVID-19 deaths, as well as 19 percent of cases worldwide. The country will soon surpass 50 million cases.

New infections in the United States average about 120,000 per day, with Michigan accounting for the most cases per day. COVID-19 patients are filling Michigan hospitals at record rates, with three in four of them unvaccinated, according to the Michigan Health & Hospitals Association (MHA).

Scientists are still evaluating the impact of the new Omicron variant and whether a vaccine can provide adequate protection against it. Meanwhile, the Delta variant remains the dominant version of the virus in the United States.

Of the 10 states that reported the most deaths per capita in the past 11 months, eight came from the south of Uncle Sam's State: Alabama, Georgia, Florida, Kentucky, Oklahoma, Mississippi, South Carolina, and West Virginia, according to a Reuters analysis.

To note, about 60 percent of the US population has been fully vaccinated against COVID-19, CDC data shows.

Fears of a new variant have prompted Americans to queue for a booster dose of the COVID-19 vaccine at record speeds. Just under a million people a day received a booster dose of one of the three official vaccines last week, the highest level since regulators gave the nod to additional injections.

"We must act together at this time to address the impact of the cases we are seeing today, the vast majority of which are Delta, and to prepare ourselves for the possibility of more Omicrons", US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director, Dr. Rochelle Walensky, said at a White House briefing on Tuesday.