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COVID19 Death Milestones in the US

The first COVID19 death in the U.S. occurred on February 6 in Santa Clara, CA. During the early phase of the pandemic, the deadliest day in the United States was April 15 when daily deaths reached 2,752. By April 25, a total of 50,000 people had died from COVID19. It took only 36 days for the total number of deaths to double and reach 100,000 on May 31. The death rate slowed somewhat during the summer and an average of 850 COVID19 patients were dying each day. The death rate accelerated in late October and early November, reaching a 7-day average of 2300 deaths per day. By December 9, the daily death toll reached a record high of 3,124. By comparison, the number of people killed on September 11, 2001 was 2,977. During January 2021, the COVID19 death rate accelerated, averaging more than 3,300 deaths per day. The single deadliest day of the pandemic so far was January 13, when COVIDLY reported 4,365 deaths. Much of the surge has been attributed to people gathering over the holidays from Thanksgiving to New Year’s Eve.

The length of time it has taken to log each 50,000 deaths has decreased dramatically since the country’s first known Covid-19 death on February 6. The following table shows the date at which each additional 50,000 deaths was recorded by the COVID Tracking Project and the number of days required to reach each milestone.

Date Number of Deaths Days to Increase 50K
February 6, 2020 1  
April 25, 2020 50,175 59
May 31, 2020 100,127 36
August 5, 2020 150,321 66
October 2, 2020 200,787 58
November 24, 2020 251,529 51
December 14, 2020 300,586 20
January 2, 2021 351,724 19
January 17, 2021 400,513 15
February 3, 2021 450,836 17
February 21, 2021 503,537 18


The first 50,000 deaths were reported on April 25, 2020. It took approximately 50 days to record each successive 50,000 deaths, up to 250,000 on November 24, 2020. Since then, the length of time to log each successive 50,000 deaths has decreased dramatically to less than 20 days. COVID19 has become the leading cause of death in the US, surpassing heart disease and cancer. One person was dying every 36 seconds from COVID19.

Since July, the COVID19 case fatality rate has remained at about 1.5 percent, but the number of daily COVID19 cases has increased to a 7-day average of 213,293. Multiplying the number of daily cases times 1.5 percent, leads to an average of 3,199 deaths per day. At that rate, the US was predicted to add 50,000 deaths every 16 days, which is almost exactly what happened through February 3, 2021.

The pandemic's deadliest day in the US was January 12, 2021 when 4,400 people died of COVID19. By mid-February 2021, an average of 1900 people were dying from COVID19 every day, which was a significant decrease from the mid-January average of 3300.

The United States surpassed 500,000 COVID19 deaths on February 21, 2021. The actual number was 503,537. The total number of global deaths due to COVID19 was 2,473,328. The US had the most reported deaths from COVID19 in the world, followed by Brazil (246,605), Mexico (180,107), and India (156,385).

No other country had realized so many deaths in the pandemic. More Americans had perished from Covid-19 than on the battlefields of World War I, World War II and the Vietnam War combined. Approximately one in 670 Americans had died from COVID19. Peter Hotez attributed this sorrowful landmark to a failed national pandemic response and a White House anti-science disinformation campaign

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