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US Pandemic Death Toll Reaches 400,000 Lives Lost To COVID-19 : Shots - Health News - NPR
Jan 19, 2021 2 mins, 17 secs
Mary Estime-Irvin, a councilwoman in North Miami, Fla., writes the name of a friend lost to COVID-19 on a symbolic tombstone that is part of a pandemic memorial at Griffing Park in North Miami in October.

Mary Estime-Irvin, a councilwoman in North Miami, Fla., writes the name of a friend lost to COVID-19 on a symbolic tombstone that is part of a pandemic memorial at Griffing Park in North Miami in October.

"It didn't have to be like this, and it shouldn't still be like this," says Kristin Urquiza, who began communicating with other grieving family members after her father, Mark, died from COVID-19 on June 30 as the virus was sweeping through Phoenix.

"I talk to dozens of strangers a day who are going through what I did in June, but the magnitude and the haunting similarities between our stories six months later is really hard," Urquiza says.

Kristin Urquiza and her father, Mark, at a family celebration in Phoenix in 2016.

After her father's death on June 30, Urquiza co-founded a group for grieving family members, Marked By COVID.

Kristin Urquiza and her father, Mark, at a family celebration in Phoenix in 2016.

After her father's death on June 30, Urquiza co-founded a group for grieving family members, Marked By COVID.

death rate from COVID-19 remains lower than that of many other countries.

"It's very hard to wrap your mind around a number that is so large, particularly when we've had 10 months of large numbers assaulting our senses and really, really horrific images coming out of our hospitals and our morgues," says Dr.

Scientists had long anticipated that wintertime could plunge the country into the deadliest months yet, but even Bibbins-Domingo wasn't ready for the sheer pace of deaths, or the scale of the accumulated losses.

The mortality burden has fallen heavily on her state of California, a place that was averaging fewer than 100 deaths a day for long stretches of the pandemic but is now recording more than 500 deaths a day.

The path to 400,000 deaths was painfully familiar, with patterns of sickness and death repeating themselves from earlier in the pandemic.

Deaths linked to long-term care now account for more than a third of all COVID-19 deaths in the U.S.

People over 65 make up the overwhelming majority of deaths, but Jha says more young people are dying than earlier in the pandemic simply because the virus is so widespread.

"A lot of what we saw during the holiday travel was the inability to reach our loved ones or family members — not like a public service announcement, but one-on-one talking to them [about the exposure risks].

A quarter of all COVID-19 deaths have happened during the five-week period since the Food and Drug Administration authorized the first vaccine on Dec.

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