Morning Briefing
Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations
Passing 600K Deaths, Covid's Toll In US Is Higher Than Any Other Nation
NPR: The U.S. Has Hit 600,000 COVID Deaths, More Than Any Other Country
More than 15 months since the first confirmed death due to COVID-19 in the U.S., the coronavirus pandemic has claimed more than 600,000 lives across the country. But that trend has slowed from thousands to hundreds per day in recent weeks, thanks largely to the ready availability of vaccines. Over the winter, the nation was adding about 100,000 deaths each month. But as more and more people were vaccinated — particularly older Americans — the death rate fell precipitously. There are now about 375 deaths per day on average — down from more than 3,000 per day in January. (Neuman, 6/15)
AP: US COVID-19 Deaths Hit 600,000, Equal To Yearly Cancer Toll
The U.S. death toll from COVID-19 topped 600,000 on Tuesday, even as the vaccination drive has drastically brought down daily cases and fatalities and allowed the country to emerge from the gloom and look forward to summer. The number of lives lost, as recorded by Johns Hopkins University, is greater than the population of Baltimore or Milwaukee. It is about equal to the number of Americans who died of cancer in 2019. Worldwide, the COVID-19 death toll stands at about 3.8 million. (Har and Kunzelman, 6/15)
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PBS NewsHour: 5 Charts That Show Where We Are In The Pandemic
In many ways COVID-19 feels as if it is over, or is at least in the beginning of the end. In others, the fallout from the pandemic is still acute. Parts of the U.S. still report lagging and grossly uneven vaccination rates. Partisan politics and misinformation continue to sow divisions during this public health crisis. Many people remain jobless as their industries crawl back from the recession. And a vaccine has not yet been authorized for the nation’s youngest people, who remain at risk for infection and serious illness, along with people whose immune systems are already compromised. Here’s a look at five different series of data that offer a snapshot about how the nation is recovering and what work is left to be done. (Santhanam and McGrew, 6/15)
ABC News: Photos: How The 1918 Flu And COVID-19 Pandemics Compare
There are strong parallels between the COVID-19 pandemic and the 1918 flu pandemic, considered to be the deadliest of the 20th century. The 1918 flu pandemic killed an estimated 50 million worldwide, including nearly 675,000 Americans, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. To date, more than 176 million people have been infected with COVID-19 worldwide. More than 3.8 million have died, including more than 600,000 Americans, according to real-time data compiled by Johns Hopkins University. (Chalasani, 6/15)
