1,000,000 = Way Too Many

 

The United States will reach the grim milestone of one million deaths from COVID-19 any day now, according to the Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center which The PediaBlog has relied on for credible statistics throughout the pandemic. Globally, more than 6.2 million people have died from the infection in the 30 months since the first case of SARS-CoV-2 was identified in Wuhan, China.

Tina Reed and colleagues at Axios put the scale and speed of such terrible loss in perspective:

• On March 28, 2020, two weeks after the World Health Organization declared coronavirus a global pandemic and the President of the United States declared COVID-19 a national public health emergency, 2,974 Americans were dead from COVID-19 — equal to the number who perished as a result of the September 11 terrorist attacks.

• Three weeks later, on April 16, 2020, there were 36,914 dead, equal to the number of American soldiers killed during the Korean War. In 10 more days, the number dead equaled the Vietnam War death toll of 58,220. (It took another 6 weeks to surpass the World War I death toll of 116,516.)

• On December 14, 2020, the day a New York City nurse, Sandra Lindsay, became the first American to receive a vaccine for COVID-19, almost 300,000 — nearly the same as the number of people living in Pittsburgh, PA — were dead from COVID.

• One month later, on January 16, 2021, the number of dead surpassed the American WWII death toll (405,400).

• By November 1, 2021 — 20 months into the pandemic — the number of dead from COVID-19 exceeded the total number of Americans who died during the 1918 influenza pandemic (675,000), the 40-year HIV/AIDS epidemic (700,000), and America’s deadliest war, the Civil War (750,000).

 

One million. COVID has killed more Americans than the number of people living in 5 states (Vermont, Alaska, North Dakota, South Dakota, and Delaware) and the District of Columbia. One million is more than 15 Heinz Fields filled to capacity, or 50 PPG Paints Arenas filled with patrons cheering on the Penguins). Compared with every other nation’s official tally, the U.S. death toll is the highest, exceeding second-place Brazil (664,000), India, and Russia.

Robert Hart points out that COVID’s toll has not been distributed equally in this country:

The majority of Covid-19 deaths were among older Americans

About three-quarters of Covid deaths were reported among people aged 65 and above. Around a fifth were among people ages 45-64. Just over 4% of deaths were in people under 45 years, with the younger people within that cohort dying at much lower rates.

Men were hit harder than women

Around 55% of American deaths were recorded among men, according to the CDC, compared to 45% among women. Experts say there is no neat explanation for this gap, which means men have around 1.6 times the death rate for Covid-19 than women

Black, Indigenous and Hispanic people died at far higher rates than white people

According to CDC data, American Indian or Alaska Natives are more than two times as likely to die from Covid-19 than white people. For Black people, the risk of dying is 1.7 times that of white people and 1.8 times for Hispanic people. Death rates were slightly lower for Asian people compared to other ethnic groups, according to the CDC, around 0.8 times that of white people

Unvaccinated people are more likely to catch and die from Covid-19

In February 2022, the risk of unvaccinated people over the age of 12 testing positive for Covid was more than three times greater than that for those vaccinated with at least two doses, according to the CDC. Their risk of dying was 20 times that of vaccinated people.

 

How did this happen to citizens of the wealthiest and most medically and technologically advanced nation on Earth? J. Emory Parker examines 5 different pandemics going on at the same time: Early vs. Late (COVID was deadlier early in the pandemic when there were no vaccines or effective medicines to treat it), Older vs. Younger, Unvaccinated vs. Vaccinated, Rural vs. Urban (cities like New York were hit hard early in the pandemic, but rural death rates have actually surpassed urban death rates, and the gap continues to widen), and Poorer vs. Wealthier:

These five patterns show how SARS-CoV-2 exacted a toll few could have imagined in the spring of 2020. The why of one million is a story of both scientific achievement which saved some lives and of systemic failures which cost far too many. Of heroism and sacrifice beset by distrust and partisanship. Of collective action weighed against individual risk and responsibility.

 

One million dead have left millions more grieving, worries Ed Yong:

In just two years, COVID has become the third most common cause of death in the U.S., which means that it is also the third leading cause of grief in the U.S. Each American who has died of COVID has left an average of nine close relatives bereaved, creating a community of grievers larger than the population of all but 11 states. Under normal circumstances, 10 percent of bereaved people would be expected to develop prolonged grief, which is unusually intense, incapacitating, and persistent. But for COVID grievers, that proportion may be even higher, because the pandemic has ticked off many risk factors.

Deaths from COVID have been unexpected, untimely, particularly painful, and, in many cases, preventable. The pandemic has replaced community with isolation, empathy with judgment, and opportunities for healing with relentless triggers. Some of these features accompany other causes of death, but COVID has woven them together and inflicted them at scale. In 1 million instants, the disease has torn wounds in 9 million worlds, while creating the perfect conditions for those wounds to fester.

 

One million is a big number. The final toll — of the dead and their survivors — will be much much greater when the COVID-19 pandemic finally ends.

 

(Google Images)

 

source http://www.thepediablog.com/2022/05/16/1000000-way-too-many/