US COVID death toll, sped by Omicron, surpasses 900,000
Al JazeeraThe United States hits grim milestone as new cases are declining, but deaths are at more than 2,400 per day on average. Propelled by the highly contagious Omicron coronavirus variant, the US COVID-19 death toll hit 900,000, according to data from Johns Hopkins University, less than two months after the country surpassed 800,000 fatalities. “If you had told most Americans two years ago as this pandemic was getting going that 900,000 Americans would die over the next few years, I think most people would not have believed it.” While the brutal Omicron wave is easing its grip on the US – with new cases of COVID-19 falling in 49 of the country’s 50 states – deaths are running at more than 2,400 per day on average, the highest level since the last northern winter. The US has the highest reported coronavirus death toll of any country in the world, and even then, the actual number of lives lost directly or indirectly to COVID-19 is thought to be significantly higher. “Those are mothers, fathers, children, our elders.” As COVID-19 has become one of the top three causes of death in the US, behind heart disease and cancer, Jha and other health experts are raising frustrations that US policymakers are seemingly running out of ideas for getting people vaccinated.