The U.S. Has Reached 400,000 COVID-19 Deaths

The United States has reached 400,000 deaths due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic and bypassed 24 million cases.

The grim number was announced on Tuesday, as Donald Trump prepared to make his exit from the White House after a tumultuous presidency that drew wide criticism in most areas, including how he handled the coronavirus in the early days of the pandemic. Someone dies of COVID-19 every 26 seconds. The virus is killing more Americans weekly than any other disease, including cancer. Within the last five weeks, over 100,000 people have died from the virus. The deadliest day of the pandemic has been January 12th, which saw over 4,000 deaths. New York alone has recorded more than 40,000 COVID-19 deaths, which is why Governor Andrew Cuomo is asking to purchase the vaccine from Pfizer.

President-elect Joe Biden has pledged to tackle the virus aggressively when he takes office on January 20th by accelerating the vaccine availability.

“You have my word that we will manage the hell out of this operation,” Biden said on Friday.

To make matters worse, new variants of the virus are making it much more transmissible, which will only drive the number of cases higher.