EpidemicsU.S. COVID-19 Deaths Top the 200,000 Mark

By Lisa Schnirring

The United States passed the grim milestone of 200,000 deaths from COVID-19 yesterday (22 September) on the first day of fall, cases are rising nationally, and more controversies and developments continue to roil the U.S. response.

Currently, the U.S. fatality count from COVID-19 is at 200,477 among 6,882,969 cases that have been reported, according to the Johns Hopkins online dashboard.

Fatalities Outpace Earlier Projections
To mark reaching the death threshold, the COVID Memorial Project this morning finished placing 20,000 American flags around the Washington Monument. Earlier this summer, models produced for the White House coronavirus task force predicted that the U.S. death toll could reach 169,890 by Oct 1 and that deaths would drop off in July and August before rising again at the end of September and worsening through October and November.

As fatalities outpace earlier predictions, cases are also rising again, as many predicted, due to schools and colleges resuming and cooler weather drawing more people indoors for their activities. The New York Times tracker recorded at least 54,874 new cases Monday and 428 more deaths, with cases over the past week showing a 7 percent rise compared to the previous 2 weeks.

Part of the rise in cases is likely due to tens of thousands of extra cases in recent weeks as colleges and universities reopen for face-to-face instruction, the Wall Street Journal originally reported based on study to appear on the medRxiv preprint server. The team estimated that 3,200 extra cases a day in the United States wouldn’t have occurred if the schools had kept classes online.

Patterns vary across the United States, and in one promising sign, California’s COVID-19 positivity rate last week fell below 3 percent for the first time, dropping to 2.8 percent, the Los Angeles Times reported.

Political Divides Add More Bumps to Response Road
Meanwhile, several other developments laid bare the ongoing political divide over the virus and its response, and raised new questions about how federal officials are managing the crisis.

At a campaign rally in Ohio Monday, President Trump claimed without evidence that the virus poses hardly any threat to young people and that it affects “virtually nobody”, Politico reported. He acknowledged that older people and those with underlying conditions are affected.