US stuck in a ‘horrible plateau’ of Covid-19 deaths, experts say
- The United States remains the hardest-hit nation with more than 12,500 Covid-related deaths reported in July
- Covid deaths are similar to the number of influenza deaths reported during peak season, expert says
“Covid is over” might trend within social media circles, but weekly US death tolls tell a different story.
The pace of Covid-19 deaths has remained relatively steady since May, despite an uptick in July to about 400 a day, according to a USA TODAY analysis of Johns Hopkins University data.
“We’re sitting on this horrible plateau,” said Dr Daniel Griffin, an infectious disease specialist with Pro Health Care in New York and a clinical instructor of medicine at Columbia University. “It’s been this way for the past couple of months, and we’re getting used to it.”
In July, more than 12,500 Americans died of Covid-19.
Coronavirus deaths are similar to the number of influenza deaths reported during peak season, said David Dowdy, epidemiologist at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. A bad flu season could see more than 50,000 deaths.
That doesn’t mean Covid-19 mortality has reached that of flu, he said, as peak flu season lasts only about three months. Spread over the course of the year, Dowdy said, there would be about four times as many Covid-19 deaths than flu deaths.