COVID-19 deaths in US to hit 500,000 milestone

The US on Sunday stood at the brink of a once-unthinkable tally: 500,000 people killed by the coronavirus.

A year into the pandemic, the running total of lives lost was about 498,000 — roughly the population of Kansas City, Missouri, and just shy of the size of Atlanta. The figure compiled by Johns Hopkins University surpasses the number of people who died in 2019 of chronic lower respiratory diseases, stroke, Alzheimer’s, flu and pneumonia combined.

“It’s nothing like we have ever been through in the last 102 years, since the 1918 influenza pandemic,” the nation’s top infectious disease expert, Dr. Anthony Fauci, said on CNN’s “State of the Union.”

The US virus death toll reached 400,000 on January 19 in the waning hours in office for President Donald Trump, whose handling of the crisis was judged by public health experts to be a singular failure.

The first known deaths in the US were in early February 2020, both in Santa Clara County, California. It took four months to reach 100,000. The toll hit 200,000 in September and 300,000 in December. Then it took just over a month to go from 300,000 to 400,000 and two months to go from 400,000 to the brink of 500,000.

Joyce Willis of Las Vegas is among the countless Americans who has lost family. Her husband, Anthony Willis, died on December 28, followed by her mother-in-law in early January.

There were anxious calls from the ICU when her husband was hospitalized. She was unable to see him before he died because she, too, had the virus and could not visit.

“They are gone. Your loved one is gone, but you are still alive,” Willis said. “It’s like you still have to get up every morning. You have to take care of your kids and make a living. There is no way around it. You just have to move on.”

Then came a nightmare scenario of caring for her father-in-law while dealing with grief, arranging funerals, paying bills, helping her children navigate online school and figuring out how to go back to work as an occupational therapist.

Her father-in-law, a Vietnam vet, also contracted the virus. He also suffered from respiratory issues and died on February 8. The family isn’t sure if COVID-19 contributed to his death.

“Some days I feel OK and other days I feel like I’m strong and I can do this,” she said. “And then other days it just hits me. My whole world is turned upside-down.”

The global death toll was approaching 2.5 million, according to Johns Hopkins. The count is based on figures supplied by government agencies around the world. The real toll is believed to be significantly higher, in part because of inadequate testing and cases inaccurately attributed to other causes early on.