US to surpass milestone of 200,000 virus deaths
WASHINGTON: The death toll from the spread of coronavirus in the United States was approaching over 200,000 lives on Monday, more than double the number of fatalities in India, the country reporting 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 is down from a peak of 2,806 daily deaths recorded on April 15.
During the early months of the pandemic, 200,000 deaths was regarded by many as the maximum number of lives likely to be lost in the United States to the virus.
Earlier this month, US President Donald Trump defended his handling of the crisis. He admited to playing down the danger of the coronavirus early on because he did not want to “create a panic.”
With barely six weeks let before the election on Nov. 3, Trump is behind Democratic rival Joe Biden nationally in every major opinion poll and is neck and neck in key swing states.
Trump’s handling of the pandemic and subsequent economic downturn has batered his standing 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 held large political rallies where few wore masks.
US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Director Robert Redfield recently told
Congress that a face mask would provide more guaranteed protection than a vaccine, which would only be broadly available by “late second quarter, third quarter 2021.”
Trump refuted the timeline for the vaccine and said that it may be available in a mater of weeks and ahead of the Nov. 3 election.
On Friday he said he expects all Americans to have a vaccine by April.
Biden, who oten wears a mask and has said he would require masks nationwide, has warned against a rushed release 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 US death toll will reach as high as 218,000 by Oct.10.
The University of Washington’s health institute is forecasting coronavirus fatalities reaching 378,000 by the end of 2020, with the daily death toll skyrocketing to 3,000 per day in December.