´óÏó´«Ã½

More than 800,000 Americans have now died from the coronavirus, the highest recorded national death toll from the global pandemic. It comes as the US reached 50 million confirmed cases of Covid-19 on Monday. Most deaths have been recorded among the unvaccinated and the elderly, and more Americans died in 2021 than in 2020.

Obviously a huge country will have a huge number of cases, but even per head of population the US is in the top twenty countries - comparable to Peru, Romania and Brazil. Professor Bradley Pollock associate dean for public health sciences at the University California Davis School of Medicine – who we spoke to at the start of the pandemic – reflected on whether he thought it would get this high.

"We had no idea. Vaccines had a material impact but not as much as we wanted (it) to have. It's really the unvaccinated that are driving hospitalisations and the mortality related to the virus... and the ability of the virus to mutate."

(Pic: White flags representing Americans who have died of COVID-19 are placed on the National Mall in Washington; Credit: Reuters)

Show less