The United States is ultimately front and center with the current pandemic as its COVID-19 death toll is now over 200,000.
September is almost over and 2020 is about to end but the pandemic is still on a high. Globally, the COVID-19 death toll is nearing a million.
As of this writing, per Worldometer, the total death count is 975,472. A big chunk of that statistic is coming from the United States.
The global spread outbreak has resulted in citizens accusing their governments, of all sorts of mistakes. President Donald Trump, on the other hand, points his finger at China for allowing the virus to get out of its country.
Moreover, the current POTUS has long been gravely criticized on how he has handled the pandemic. Most especially, when the Woodward book, RAGE, revealed how he purposely downplayed the virus.
“A tragic landmark”
To be specific, as of this writing the total COVID-19 death toll count for the U.S. is 205,471, per Worldometer. Brazil is in second place with the number of deaths, as data shows it already has a total of 138,159 deaths.
The Guardian dubs this 200,000-mark as “another tragic landmark.” Dr. Anthony Fauci spoke with CNN recently and he calls this “grim milestone” as:
“The idea of 200,000 deaths is really very sobering, and in some respects, stunning.”
Despite the overwhelming number, President Trump still brought pride to himself. In fact, BBC News notes that he gave himself a grade of “A+” and for doing “a phenomenal job” in handling the COVID-19 pandemic.
Departing from his campaign rally in Pittsburgh, he answered a few questions from the media present.
Initially, he ignored one reporter’s question about the POTUS not saying “anything about the US hitting 200,000 coronavirus deaths.”
When confronted with a similar question, he answered:
“Well, I know this. The original numbers were around 200,000 if you do it right. If you did a good job and if the public worked along. If you didn’t do it right, you’d be two million—two and a half million.”
Trump's message about the US hitting 200,000 coronavirus deaths is to try and pass blame to China pic.twitter.com/Z2OlvxG7dy
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) September 22, 2020
Contrary to Trump’s beliefs, critics and many public health experts strongly believe that the COVID-19 death toll “would be much lower.” To add, it is believed that the virus could’ve been contained if the Trump administration had acted firmly and early at the onset of the spread.
America’s current situation
According to the data provided by Johns Hopkins University, Los Angeles tops the list for the number of deaths by country. As of this writing, it has 6,366 deaths.
California as a whole, per Worldometer, has a total of 15,195 deaths.
In the same CNN sitdown with Sanjay Gupta, Dr. Fauci says the country has the capability to prevent the COVID-19 transmission, even with the absence of a vaccine. He says:
“We do have within our capability — even before we get a vaccine, which we will get reasonably soon — we have the capability by doing things that we have been speaking about for so long, Sanjay, that could prevent the transmission, and by preventing transmission, ultimately preventing the morbidity and mortality that we see.”
Despite the COVID-19 cases still rising, many establishments had already been allowed to open to save the economy.
Featured image courtesy of KieferPix/Shutterstock