Covid-19 Deaths Reach 100,000 in the U.S.
- Tracking Covid-19
- Cases in the U.S.
- Global Cases
- U.S. Economy Recovery Tracker
- U.S. Small Business Impact
“We have it totally under control,” President Donald Trump said the day after the first U.S. Covid-19 case was confirmed on Jan. 21. At the time, China and Europe were battling a virus as puzzling as it was deadly. Eight days later, he gave a little bit, saying at a rally: “You know, it’s something that we have to be very, very careful with.” But no one knew how bad it could be as models forecast deaths from a few thousand to 240,000 or more.
The U.S. Reaches a Grim Milestone
100,000 deaths in the U.S. on May 27
Source: JHU CSSE
Now, 100,000 have died, 126 days since the first case and 87 days since the CDC announced the first fatality, on Feb. 29 in Washington State. The elderly have fared the worst, though now children are suffering from a rare, sometimes fatal condition. In New York, 799 people died on a single day, April 9. Two days later, the U.S. passed 20,000 fatalities, moving it to the fore with the world’s highest death toll.
This milestone is concrete. It’s as if the city of South Bend, Indiana, vanished or Albany, New York, where Governor Andrew Cuomo offered a split-screen to Trump’s media briefings. The number who have died is equal to about half of all McDonald’s employees, before the lockdown, or two sold-out Yankee Stadiums. Now, after battles over masks, distancing and unthinkable economic destruction, all 50 states have begun a reopening intertwined with election politics and fear. Plus, with the line on the nation’s death chart still pointing upward, the unanswerable question of the final human cost still looms.