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Memorials hang from the front gate of Greenwood Cemetery during an event and parade organized by Name Lost Memorials to remember and celebrate the lives of those killed by the COVID-19 pandemic in New York City. Spencer Platt / Getty Images Hide caption
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Memorials hang from the front gate of Greenwood Cemetery during an event and parade organized by Name Lost Memorials to remember and celebrate the lives of those killed by the COVID-19 pandemic in New York City.
Spencer Platt / Getty Images
More than 15 months since the first confirmed death from COVID-19 in the United States, the coronavirus pandemic has killed more than 600,000 people across the country.
But that trend has slowed from just thousands to hundreds per day in recent weeks, thanks in large part to the ready availability of vaccines.
During the winter, the nation was adding about 100,000 deaths each month. But as more people were vaccinated – especially older Americans – the death rate fell sharply. There are now about 375 deaths a day on average – down from more than 3,000 deaths a day in January.
Worldwide, the United States continues to have the highest number of total deaths, followed by Brazil, India and Mexico. The total death toll in the world reached 3.8 million.
The death toll, according to Johns Hopkins University, was 600,012 on Tuesday afternoon.
However, the cumulative number of deaths in the United States clearly shows the recent positive effect of vaccines: barely a month passed between 400,000 and a half million deaths, but it took almost four times as long to reach the 600,000 mark. At the same time, the trend in the number of New infections, which closely mirrored deaths, peaked in January at more than 300,000 in a single day. Now the United States is hovering around an average of fewer than 15,000 confirmed infections, according to Johns Hopkins.
Positive trends have led many states to lift coronavirus restrictions — with many dropping mask mandates entirely for vaccinated individuals and scrapping other social distancing requirements.
At the same time, many Americans have shown a reluctance to vaccinate, with more than half of adults in the United States fully immunized. In parts of the Midwest and South, in particular, vaccine rates per 100,000 people are still relatively low compared to the Northeast and parts of the West Coast, according to data from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The split was particularly noticeable between the rural and urban areas of the country.
Tuesday’s numbers follow a study this week showing that a new vaccine, made by Novavax, is 100% effective against the original strain of the coronavirus that causes COVID-19, and 93% effective against other variants.
The next step is for the company to seek regulatory approval from the US Food and Drug Administration, which has issued emergency authorizations for three more vaccines — those made by Pfizer, Moderna and Johnson & Johnson.
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