THE United States has hit another grim milestone as Covid deaths surpassed one million two years after the virus reached America.
The unimaginable record was reported by NBC News, citing data compiled by the outlet.
The staggering death toll comes as Covid cases across the nation have plummeted, prompting states to lift mask and vaccine mandates.
While deaths from Covid have slowed in recent weeks, about 360 people have still been dying every day, NBC reports.
The US death toll is the world’s highest total by a significant margin, data shows, with Brazil in second, which has recorded just over 660,000 Covid deaths.
The Center for Disease Control and Prevention confirmed the first Covid-positive case in the US on January 20, 2020.
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Two months later, the World Health Organization declared Covid-19 a global pandemic.
More than a third of all reported deaths in the US happened last winter, between November 2020 and February 2021.
Since December 1, when health officials announced the first Omicron case in the US, the share of Americans who the virus has killed is at least 63 percent higher than in other large, wealthy nations, The New York Times reported.
In recent months, the US passed Britain and Belgium to have, among wealthy nations, the largest share of its population to have died from Covid over the entire pandemic.
Since the Covid vaccines began rolling out in the US in December 2020, about 77 percent of the population has received at least one shot, USA Facts reports.
However, just 66 percent of Americans are fully vaccinated, and only 30 percent have received their booster shot.
As deadly as the Omicron wave has been, the situation in the US is far better than it would have been without vaccines.
The Omicron variant causes less severe illness than Delta, even though it has led to staggering case numbers.
Together, vaccines and the less-lethal nature of Omicron infections have significantly reduced the share of people with Covid who are hospitalized and dying during this wave.
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Still, unvaccinated people continue to make up a majority of hospitalized patients across the nation.
Even among the fully vaccinated, the lack of a booster leaves millions with waning protection months past the peak immunity levels afforded by the second shots.
