On Tuesday, the number of deaths caused by Covid-19 in the United States exceeded 800,000. This once unimaginable number is regarded as a double tragedy, because more than 200,000 people have died after the vaccine was almost available for inquiry last spring.

The death toll compiled by Johns Hopkins University is approximately equal to the combined population of Atlanta and St. Louis, or the combined population of Minneapolis and Cleveland. This roughly corresponds to how many Americans die of heart disease or stroke each year.

The United States has the highest number of reported deaths among all countries. Since the outbreak of the coronavirus in China two years ago, the United States has accounted for approximately 4% of the world’s population, but it accounts for approximately 15% of the 5.3 million known deaths from the coronavirus.

Because cases have been ignored or concealed, the data on true deaths in the United States and around the world are much higher.

The forecasting model closely followed by the University of Washington predicts that as of March 1, the number of deaths reported in the United States will exceed 880,000.

Health experts lament that many deaths in the United States are particularly heartbreaking because they can be prevented with a vaccine, which came out in mid-December a year ago and was made available to all adults in mid-April this year.

Approximately 200 million Americans have been fully vaccinated, accounting for more than 60% of the population. This is far below the conditions required by scientists to control the virus.

“Almost all people who died are now dying from preventable deaths,” said Dr. Chris Beyrer, an epidemiologist at the Bloomberg School of Public Health at Johns Hopkins University. “That’s because they haven’t been vaccinated. You know, God, this is a terrible tragedy.”

When the vaccine was first introduced, the country’s death toll was approximately 300,000. It reached 600,000 in mid-June and 700,000 on October 1.

The United States has surpassed the latest threshold, and the number of cases and hospitalizations has risen again, driven by the highly infectious delta variant, which arrived in the first half of 2021 and now accounts for almost all infections. Now, the omicron variant is gaining a foothold in the country, although scientists are not sure how dangerous it is.

Bayer recalled that in March or April 2020, one of the worst-case scenarios is that there will be 240,000 deaths in the United States.

“I saw that number, and I thought it was incredible—240,000 Americans died?” he said. “And we have now exceeded three times this number.” He added: “And I think it’s fair to say that we have not gotten out of the predicament.”