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Coronavirus Watch: US surpasses 600,000 COVID-19 deaths

Grace Hauck   | Paste BN

The U.S. surpassed 600,000 COVID-19 deaths Tuesday.

For a nation that accounts for 4% of the global population, the U.S. accounts for nearly 16% of all COVID-19 deaths worldwide.

No other nation has reported more COVID-19 cases or deaths, though some nations have likely underreported their true totals. Brazil has officially reported more than 488,000 deaths, and India has officially reported more than 377,000 deaths.

It's Tuesday, and this is the Coronavirus Watch from the Paste BN Network. Here's more news you need to know:

  • Mounting evidence suggests COVID-19 may have been circulating in the U.S. earlier than previously thought and before the first case was discovered on Jan. 21, 2020, according to a study published Tuesday by the National Institutes of Health’s All of Us Research Program.
  • New York state has surpassed the first-shot, 70% vaccination threshold for adults, Gov. Andrew Cuomo announced Tuesday, a benchmark that will trigger a pullback on safety precautions such as those still in place for social distancing in restaurants.
  • California reopens today, effectively ending a slew of 15-month restrictions to stem the COVID-19 pandemic. Meanwhile, the University of California will require students, staff and faculty to be fully vaccinated against COVID-19 this fall, the latest in a group of colleges to require a vaccine to go on campus.
  • More than 50 million people have experienced food insecurity during the pandemic, up from 35 million in 2019, according to the Feeding America nonprofit, the nation’s largest domestic hunger-relief organization. 
  • The U.S. will send Mexico an overnight shipment of 1.35 million vaccines after Vice President Kamala Harris promised a surplus shipment to the southern neighbor last week. 

Today's numbers: The U.S. has reported more than 33 million COVID-19 cases and 600,000 deaths, according to data from Johns Hopkins University. Worldwide, there have been more than 176 million cases and more than 3.8 million deaths. More than 52% of people in the U.S. have received at least one vaccine shot, and about 44% are fully vaccinated, according to the CDC.

Tracking the pandemic: See the numbers in your area here. See where cases are rising here. See vaccination rates here. And here, compare vaccinations rates worldwide and see which countries are using which vaccines.

– Grace Hauck, Paste BN breaking news reporter, @grace_hauck

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