More than 600,000 people have died from COVID-19 in the U.S. since the start of the pandemic, Johns Hopkins University said Tuesday.
To put that in perspective, the national death toll is now greater than the number of people living in Wyoming and roughly the population of Baltimore.
The staggering figure was reached even though mass vaccinations have driven down daily case rates, and hard-hit states such as California have dropped most of the physical distancing requirements that reshaped American life during the last 15 months.
Overall, the U.S. COVID-19 death rate now compares with the country’s annual cancer death toll, which topped 606,000 in 2019, according to the American Cancer Society.
On Monday, the U.S. reported 12,710 new confirmed coronavirus cases and 170 new deaths, according to Johns Hopkins.
The worldwide COVID-19 death toll stands at about 3.8 million.
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