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TOPLINE
With the U.S. counting upwards of 61,000 confirmed coronavirus deaths on Wednesday evening, the coronavirus pandemic is more deadly than any flu the country has seen since 1967 — but still falls far short of the devastating 1918 Spanish flu pandemic.
A funeral home worker wore a face visor to wheel the body of a deceased person into a van outside … [+]
KEY FACTS
Johns Hopkins University tallied 61,005 confirmed deaths in the U.S. from the coronavirus as of Thursday morning, passing up the official death toll of America’s worst flu in recent memory, the 2017-2018 flu season that killed an estimated 61,000 people.
The U.S. has the world’s highest number of confirmed coronavirus deaths, with an average of 2,000 people dying per day for the month of April, according to Reuters.
However, the Centers For Disease Control data indicates that the true death toll of the coronavirus pandemic is probably much higher than what is being recorded in confirmed death tallies.
New York City has been hit the hardest and is the global epicenter of the coronavirus pandemic — though this week, new hospitalizations dropped for the first time in a month.
The death toll hit as some states look to reopen in the coming weeks, a move that could lead to even more deaths, according to coronavirus models.
KEY BACKGROUND
By CDC counts, only three flu seasons in recorded American history have been more deadly than coronavirus, according to Reuters. The only three flu seasons with more deaths were in 1967 that roughly 100,000 Americans died from, the 1957 season that killed 116,000 and the 1918 Spanish Flu that killed a staggering 675,000 Americans by the end of the pandemic. Worldwide, more than 3.2 million confirmed coronavirus cases and upwards of 228,000 deaths have been counted by Johns Hopkins University.
FURTHER READING
U.S. coronavirus outbreak soon to be deadlier than any flu since 1967 as deaths top 60,000 (Reuters)
U.S. Coronavirus Death Toll Is Far Higher Than Reported, C.D.C. Data Suggests (The New York Times
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