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WASHINGTON: The death toll from the spread of the coronavirus in the United States was approaching more than 200,000 lives on Monday (September 21), more than double the number of deaths in India, the country that reports the second highest number of cases in the world.
The United States, on a weekly average, is now losing about 800 lives each day to the virus, according to a Reuters tally. That’s below the high of 2,806 daily deaths recorded on April 15.
During the first months of the pandemic, 200,000 deaths were considered by many to be the maximum number of lives that would likely be lost in the United States to the virus.
Earlier this month, US President Donald Trump defended his handling of the crisis. He admitted to having downplayed the danger of the coronavirus early on because he did not want to “create a panic.”
READ: US Sets Record With Over 1 Million COVID-19 Tests In One Day
With just six weeks to go to the Nov. 3 election, Trump is behind his Democratic rival Joe Biden nationally in all major opinion polls and is shoulder to shoulder in key states. Trump’s handling of the pandemic and subsequent economic recession has hit his position among many voters.
Trump has frequently questioned the advice of scientific experts on everything from the timing of a vaccine to reopening schools and businesses to wearing a mask. He has refused to support a national mask mandate and has held large political demonstrations where few wore masks.
The director of the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), Robert Redfield, recently told Congress that a mask would provide more guaranteed protection than a vaccine, which would only be available “by the end of the second quarter, third quarter of 2021 “.
Trump disputed the vaccine schedule, saying it could be available in a matter of weeks and before the Nov.3 election. On Friday, he said he hopes all Americans will have a vaccine by April.
READ: Trump says he hopes to have the COVID-19 vaccine for all Americans in April
Biden, who often wears a mask and has said he would need masks across the country, cautioned against a hasty launch of a vaccine, saying, “Let me be clear: I trust vaccines, I trust scientists, but I don’t trust Donald. Trump.. “
The CDC currently predicts that the death toll in the United States will reach 218,000 by October 10.
The University of Washington Institute of Health predicts coronavirus deaths to reach 378,000 by the end of 2020, and the daily death toll skyrocketed to 3,000 a day in December.
More than 70 percent of the people in the United States who lost their lives to the virus were over the age of 65, according to data from the CDC.
Comment: Donald Trump doesn’t deserve all the blame for America’s poor response to COVID-19
The southern states of Texas and Florida contributed the most deaths in the United States in the past two weeks and were closely followed by California.
California, Texas, and Florida, the three most populous states in the US, have recorded the most coronavirus infections and have long surpassed New York state, which was the epicenter of the outbreak in early 2020. country as a whole reports more than 40,000 new ones. infections on average each day.
While battling a second wave of infections, the United States reported a 17 percent increase in the number of new cases last week compared to the previous seven days, with deaths rising 7 percent on average in the last, according to a Reuters analysis. .
Six out of 10,000 US residents have died from the virus, according to Reuters data, one of the highest rates among developed nations.
Brazil follows the United States in the number of total deaths from the virus, with more than 136,000 deaths.
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