U.S. surpasses 800,000 COVID-19 deaths as Omicron looms
Despite the availability of vaccines, the disease has become one of the nation’s leading causes of death—and more people are letting their guard down.
More than a year after the first COVID-19 vaccine was authorized in the United States, the disease continues to claim a record number of lives. According to Johns Hopkins University, more than 800,000 Americans have now died from the disease since the pandemic began.
“Cumulatively across these two years, it’s clear that COVID is one of the three most common causes of death in the U.S.,” Amber D’Souza, professor of epidemiology at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Health, told National Geographic in November. Deaths fluctuate from month to month, but D’Souza says COVID-19 trails just behind heart disease and cancer, which each kill around 600,000 Americans annually.
Despite widely available vaccines, more Americans have died from the
