100,000 DEATHS

More Americans have now died from the coronavirus than from the Vietnam and Korean wars combined

of a potential vaccine might be done by late this year or early next year. Only half of Americans said they would be willing to get vaccinated if scientists are successful in developing a vaccine, according to a poll from The Associated PRESS-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research.

Among the 100,000 fatalities was 74-year-old Michael Ganci of

Newington, Connecticut, who died March 21. He was a public school teacher, a grandfather and father of four, and a 4th-degree belt Sensei in Kyokushin karate.

Ganci, who had a compromised immune system, died at a hospital in Hartford three days after showing symptoms. His family was not allowed to be with him and tried to text and talk with him on his cellphone during his final days. His wife of 48 years also tested positive for Covid19 and had to grieve alone.

For their daughter, 45-year-old Joanna Ganci of Beverly, Massachusetts, the milestone is important to understand the scope of the virus.

“But at the same time, I think the danger of counting, the danger of statistics, is that it just minimises the human element,” she said. “It’s like, what number is going to make an impact for people who haven’t been touched by it?”

It’s not even clear when the coronavirus turned deadly in the United States.

Initially, it was believed the first US deaths from the virus were in late February in a Seattle suburb.

But by mid-april, it was found that two people with the coronavirus died in California three weeks earlier.

Comparing countries is tricky, given varying levels of testing and that some coronavirus deaths can be missed. According to figures tracked by Johns Hopkins University, the death rate per 100,000 people is lower in the US than in Italy, France and Spain but higher than in Germany, China, South Korea, Singapore, Japan, New Zealand and Australia.

“The experience of other countries shows that death at that scale was preventable,” said Josh Michaud of the Kaiser Family Foundation.

“To some extent, the United States suffers from having a slow start and inconsistent approach.

“We might have seen a different trajectory if different policies were put into place earlier and more forcefully.”

If the United States had begun imposing social distancing measures one week earlier than it did in March, about 36,000 fewer people would have died in the coronavirus outbreak, according to new estimates from Columbia University disease modellers.

And if the country had begun locking down cities and limiting social contact on March 1, two weeks earlier than most people started staying home, the vast majority of the nation's deaths — about 83 per cent — would have been avoided, the researchers estimated.

Under that scenario, about 54,000 fewer people would have died by early May.

Dr Wafaa El-sadr, director of ICAP, a global health center at Columbia University, called the US death rate shocking.

“It reflects the fact that we have neglected basic fundamentals for health,” El-sadr said.

“So, now we are in this shameful situation. It is the most vulnerable people in our midst — the elderly, the poor, members of racial-ethnic minority groups — who are the ones disproportionately getting sick and dying.”