“400,000 Americans have now died of covid-19.”

The Washington Post tells the story.

“The death toll has leaped from 300,000 to almost 400,000 in less than five weeks. It took 12 weeks for the death toll to rise from 200,000 to 300,000. it took a longer 16 weeks to soar from 100,000 to 200,000.

“Beyond death, covid’s casualties suffer further indignities: Storage in refrigerator trucks parked outside overwhelmed funeral homes, funerals that must be closed to mourners, lonely burials, cremations delayed by weeks or months because of the backlog.

The pace of death has never been faster, despite all efforts by scientists, public health officials and politicians. The historically swift development of effective vaccines, improved treatment of the most severe cases and a stronger consensus around mask-wearing have failed so far against the shortcomings of an overwhelmed health-care system, a painfully slow start to the vaccination campaign, and a continuing political divide over how serious the virus is and how hard to try to contain it.”

We are in “the middle of a grim winter marked by mass death, seemingly uncontrolled illness and the most unnerving threat to U.S. democracy in more than 160 years.

“Each death from covid-19 is at once a number and a unique tragedy, and each is a strangely distant demise — so many invisible deaths in lonely places.”
The Washington Post

Video: Philly church rings bell 400 times to mark 400,000 COVID deaths in the U.S.
https://www.inquirer.com/video/video-philly-church-rings-bell-400-times-to-mark-400000-covid-deaths-in-the-us-20210118.html
Posted on: Sunday, Jan 17, 2021 by the Philadelphia Inquirer

Due to total mismanagement of the pandemic in the USA, 400,000 American lives have been lost to a new coronavirus in less than one year's time.
The first patient in the United States to be given a diagnosis of infection of this virus was recorded by the CDC on January 20, 2020.
The first COVID death in the USA was recorded by the CDC on February 29, 2020.

Today January 17, 2021 is a very sad day in history.
Had the American people worked together against the virus, most of the deaths to follow the earliest ones probably could have been prevented