Coronavirus Watch: Lowest monthly death toll in over a year

In November alone, some 9,822 Americans were reported killed by COVID-19, the lowest monthly toll in more than a year.

At that pace, an average of 327 Americans died every day in November, a Paste BN analysis of Johns Hopkins University data shows.

Since the initial wave of the original omicron variant, America has not reported significant spikes or declines in deaths. Instead, the country has reported a persistently high death toll of roughly 12,000 deaths per month.

From April through November, the country reported 97,101 deaths to COVID-19. That's about 10,000 deaths more than the United States reported for all of the last flu season, plus the latest reported year of homicides, and the entirety of the Vietnam War.

It's Monday, and this is the Coronavirus Watch from the Paste BN Network. Here's what to know: 

• Protests in China continue over the country's stringent "zero COVID policy." Some are blaming the lockdown procedures for an apartment fire that killed 10 people because emergency responders were delayed from entering the building. Read more here.
• The social effects of long COVID: The majority of people with long COVID reported experiencing stigma, according to new research from the UK. Nearly two-thirds of people said they were treated with less respect or had people they care about stop contacting them. 
• Paxlovid and pregnancy: Johns Hopkins researchers found that pregnant people who have COVID can safely take the antiviral Paxlovid to reduce the risk of severe disease. 

PSA: You can now anonymously report the results of your at-home COVID test by going to MakeMyTestCount.org for public health officials and researchers to analyze the data. The website is through the National Institutes of Health. 

As always, thank you for reading the Coronavirus Watch!

Today's newsletter is brought to you by: Health reporters Adrianna Rodriguez and Karen Weintraub; health editor Rachel Aretakis; and data reporter Mike Stucka. We'd like to especially thank Mike, who has compiled copious amounts of COVID-19 data for us over the last three years and without whom we'd know a lot less about the virus' toll.