Easing in US coincides with virus milestone
Most restrictions go in once hard-hit states as 600,000 fatalities logged
The United States passed the milestone of 600,000 COVID-19 deaths on Tuesday as New York and California, the nation’s most populous state and the first in the country to put in place a coronavirus lockdown, lifted most of their restrictions.
The death toll was revealed as the country largely returns to prepandemic life because of the vaccine rollout. Hundreds of people though are still dying daily, and vaccine hesitancy and procrastination are posing a threat to reaching herd immunity.
As of Wednesday, more than 600,200 people in the US have died of complications brought on by the coronavirus, according to Johns Hopkins University data. The total number of lives lost in the US is about equal to the number of US residents who died of cancer in 2019.
Brazil and India have reported the next highest death tolls, with Brazil at more than 490,600 and India at more than 379,500 on Wednesday. Worldwide, COVID-19 deaths stand at over 3.8 million.
All 50 US states have loosened or eliminated lockdown restrictions over the past month, including mask mandates and capacity restrictions on restaurants and other businesses.
On Tuesday, California lifted most of its restrictions.
In New York, 70 percent of adults have received at least one dose of a coronavirus vaccine. Governor Andrew Cuomo on Tuesday announced nearly all restrictions on businesses and social gatherings have been eliminated.
With the arrival of vaccines in mid-December, COVID-19 deaths per day in the US have plummeted to an average of around 340, from a high of over 3,400 in mid-January.
Since May 1, more than 23,000 people in the US have died from COVID-19, data from Johns Hopkins University showed. Cases are running at about 14,000 a day on average, down from a quarter-million daily over the winter.
The actual number of deaths in the US and around the globe is thought to be significantly higher by some health experts because many cases have been overlooked or possibly concealed by some countries.
It took just a month for the US to jump from 300,000 to 400,000 COVID-19 deaths. In late February, it became the first country to surpass a half-million coronavirus deaths.
“In the US, death from COVID-19 is almost entirely preventable,” Ajay Sethi, an associate professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, told The Wall Street Journal, citing access to vaccines in the country.
“Crossing the 600,000 milestone is a sobering reminder that the virus is still spreading and that there are still too many people unvaccinated.”
More than 144.9 million people in the US have been fully vaccinated, 43.7 percent of the population, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, or CDC, said. Some 64.5 percent of people in the US above age 18 have received at least one dose of a vaccine, the CDC added.
At its peak in mid-April, an average of nearly 3.4 million vaccines were being administered daily, CDC data showed. By May, about 1.8 million were being administered, a drop of 46 percent. The daily rate of vaccinations fell below 1 million doses for the first time earlier this month.
Vaccination hesitancy
A Gallup poll released last week found that 1 in 4 people in the US still did not want to get vaccinated against COVID-19, citing a lack of trust in the shots or concern about side effects. NBC News reported on Monday that the vast majority of COVID-19 patients in US hospitals were unvaccinated.
The Kaiser Family Foundation’s ongoing vaccine monitor shows 20 percent of adults do not intend to get the vaccine unless required, and 12 percent are on a wait-and-see mode. That’s nearly one-third of the country’s adults expressing reluctance.
Scientists generally estimate reaching herd immunity, the threshold beyond which the virus can’t easily pass from person to person, would require the US to fully vaccinate 70 percent to 85 percent of its residents.
The vaccination hesitancy has sparked measures like lotteries and giveaways in states eager to get people signed up for jabs. Ohio has been selecting one vaccinated resident each week to win $1 million.
US President Joe Biden has set a goal of vaccinating 70 percent of US adults with at least one dose of a COVID-19 vaccine by July 4. But it appears unlikely that benchmark will be met. While 13 states have reached that threshold, others are lagging, especially in the Southeast.