U.S. COVID Death Toll Equivalent to Losing Entire Wyoming Population
The number of COVID deaths in the United States has now surpassed the figure for the state of Wyoming's entire resident population.
America passed the grim milestone of 600,000 deaths on Tuesday, according to Johns Hopkins University's tracker—more than any other nation. The reported figure stands at 600,272 at the time of writing.
The country has faced more than 33 million cases—again, the highest of any nation.
Wyoming's resident population as of 2020 was 576,851, according to figures from the United States Census Bureau.
Matt Ford, a staff writer at The New Republic, noted the comparison on Twitter, writing: "Hard to wrap one's head around the scale of loss here. If the entire state of Wyoming had died over the last 15 months, the toll would still be roughly 25,000 fewer dead."
Wyoming is the nation's least-populated state. Vermont is the second least, with the 2020 census placing its resident population at 643,077. As well as surpassing Wyoming, the toll is also greater than the population of several large cities across the U.S.
These include Milwaukee, Wisconsin, where the 2020 estimated population was 589,067; Baltimore, Maryland, where it was 586,131; and Tucson, Arizona, where it was 553,571. Those totals come from Census Bureau estimates as of July 2020.
Reuters reported that it took the U.S. 113 days to go from 500,000 COVID deaths to 600,000.
The number comes as President Joe Biden pushes to reach his July 4 goal of 70 percent of U.S. adults receiving at least one shot of a COVID vaccine. The nation has so far vaccinated 166 million adults with at least one dose, or 64.6 percent, per CDC data.
A third of the COVID deaths, 200,000, have happened during Biden's tenure. The other 400,000 came while former President Donald Trump was in office.
"My heart goes out to those who've lost a loved one... We have more work to do to beat this virus and now's not the time to let our guard down," Biden said while speaking on the sidelines of NATO meetings in Brussels, Belgium, Reuters reported.
The rate of COVID-19 deaths has been on the decline, CDC figures show, despite the 600,000 milestone.
According to those statistics, there were 219 deaths recorded on June 14. The 7-day moving average was down to 292. The peak in deaths was in January when 4,412 were recorded on January 19.
Newsweek has contacted the White House for further comment on the COVID death toll.
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