US Nears 500,000 Covid Deaths

By Staff, Agencies

The United States stood on the brink Sunday of recording 500,000 Covid-related deaths since the start of the pandemic, while nations globally pressed on with vaccination rollouts.

The catastrophic US toll comes as some signs of hope are emerging in the world's hardest-hit country, with millions of people now vaccinated and winter's massive spike in infections dropping.

But deaths are still coming, and US President Joe Biden last month warned that "well over" 600,000 people in the country could die from the virus.

"It's terrible. It is historic. We haven't seen anything even close to this for well over a hundred years, since the 1918 pandemic of influenza," Biden's chief medical advisor Anthony Fauci told NBC's "Meet The Press." 

"It's something that is stunning when you look at the numbers, almost unbelievable, but it's true," Fauci added.

As of Sunday night, the US toll on the Johns Hopkins University tracking website stood at 498,879. Globally, the figure was approaching 2.5 million.

After America's first Covid-19 death was announced in February last year, it took about three months to pass the 100,000 mark, during a first wave that hit New York particularly hard.

But as the outbreak surged across the country, the pace of deaths increased, with the toll jumping from 400,000 in just over a month amid a spike fueled in part by holiday gatherings.

Fauci noted the number of daily new infections was on a steep decline after peaking in January, but he added normal life may still be some way off.

"I think we'll have a significant degree of normality... as we get into the fall and the winter, by the end of the year," Fauci said on CNN's "State of the Union."