US death toll to pass 200,000 as cases rise again

Supporters of the Covid Memorial Project place 20,000 American flags on the National Mall in Washington DC as the US coronavirus death toll reaches 200,000 lives lost 

Credit: JIM LO SCALZO/EPA-EFE/Shutterstock /Shutterstock

The death toll from the novel coronavirus in the USA is expected to cross 200,000 today, as experts warn the US could face a ‘twindemic’ of a third wave of coronavirus and the seasonal flu as we enter the autumn.

The US is currently experiencing a another rise in infections if its second peak in the summer, with cases increasing quickly in Texas and Wisconsin.

America has the highest number of recorded cases, with 6.86 million. The US has suffered more than 20 per cent of all cases and deaths worldwide from Covid-19, despite having only four per cent of the world’s population, according to data from John Hopkins University.

Only one other nation, Brazil, has a death toll in excess of 100,000, while no other nation has suffered more than 6 million cases. However, the US death rate from Covid-19 is only ninth highest in the world, at 597.1 per 1 million population. Peru has suffered the highest number of deaths as 966.8 per 1 million people.

Coronavirus USA Spotlight Chart — cases default

"As the United States and the rest of the globe tries to gain its footing with a pandemic that has already killed nearly a million people and sickened almost 30 million, it faces another virus this fall that could devastate our progress thus far: the season flu," Johns Hopkins University warned in a press release in advance of a conference of public health experts Tuesday that will address the issue.

"That is, unless we take action now to minimize cases with effective, widespread vaccination."

According to projections from the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) at the University of Washington, a surge in new infections in the autumn and winter could result in a total of 415,000 American deaths by January.

"We may be in for a very apocalyptic fall, I’m sorry to say," Dr Peter Hotez, dean of the National School of Tropical Medicine at Baylor College of Medicine, told CNN.

"And it’s happening because we’re forcing schools to reopen in areas of high transmission. We’re forcing colleges to reopen, and we don’t have the leadership nationally, telling people to wear masks and to social distance and do all the things we need to do."

Speaking at an aluminium factory in Manitowoc, Wisconsin last night, Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden described the milestone as “tragic” and laid the blame of the high death toll squarely at the feet of President Donald Trump.

“Due to Donald Trump’s lies and incompetence in the past six months, [we] have seen one of the gravest losses of American life in history. He just wasn’t up to it. He froze. He failed to act. He panicked. The virus was too big for him.”

“I worry we’re risking becoming numb to the toll it has taken on us and our country and communities like this," Biden added. "We can’t let that happen. We can’t lose the ability to feel the sorrow and the loss and the anger for so many lives lost.”

Speaking in Wisconsin, Joe Biden called the American death toll "tragic"

Credit: Carolyn Kaster /AP

President Trump has been desperate to counter the narrative that he has mishandled the pandemic. Speaking on Fox and Friends, the president said: “We’ve done a phenomenal job. Not just a good job, a phenomenal job. Other than public relations, but that’s because I have fake news. You can’t convince them of anything, they’re fake.”

"On public relations, I give myself a D. On the job itself, we take an A+ with the ventilators and now with the vaccines that are years ahead of schedule."

Speaking at a rally in Ohio on Monday night, the President also claimed that the virus had “virtually” no effect on young people.

“Take your hat off to the young, because they have a hell of an immune system. But it affects virtually nobody. It’s an amazing thing. By the way, open your schools.”

According to figures released by the CDC on September 16, 1,802 Americans under the age of 34 have died as a result of coronavirus, a little under 1 per cent of the nation’s death toll.