US eclipses 700,000 coronavirus deaths as Delta hits unvaccinated Americans hard
- It took 3 ½ months for the US to go from 600,000 to 700,000 deaths, driven by the Delta variant’s rampant spread through unvaccinated Americans
- ‘If you’re not vaccinated or have protection from natural infection, this virus will find you,’ a doctor warns
It took 3 ½ months for the US to go from 600,000 to 700,000 deaths, driven by the variant’s rampant spread through unvaccinated Americans. The death toll is larger than the population of Boston.
This milestone is especially frustrating to public health leaders and medical professionals on the front lines because vaccines have been available to all eligible Americans for nearly six months and the shots overwhelmingly protect against hospitalisation and death. An estimated 70 million eligible Americans remain unvaccinated, providing kindling for the variant.
“You lose patients from Covid and it should not happen,” said Debi Delapaz, a nurse manager at UF Health Jacksonville who recalled how the hospital was at one point losing eight patients a day to Covid-19 during the summer surge. “This is something that should not happen.”
Despite the rising death toll, there are signs of improvement.