One day this past week — it’s hard to say exactly when — COVID-19 surpassed World War II in number of Americans killed.
Total U.S. military deaths in World War II were just over 405,000. From various sources, total U.S. COVID-19 deaths as of January 23 were either 408,272 (COVID tracking project); 412,592 (CDC); 417,390 (New York Times); 417,400 (Johns Hopkins); or 427,637 (Worldometers). None of these are in exact agreement due to various differences in methodology and timing for counting and reporting cases. However, they are all in agreement that deaths are climbing at the rate of several thousand per day (and because official counts are certainly an underestimate of the true number, we likely left World War II behind weeks ago). From another perspective, with the number of daily deaths now somewhere from 3,000 to 4,000 each day, we’re experiencing Pearl Harbor (and more) daily.
The most deadly war in U.S. history was, unsurprisingly, the Civil War, with most estimates of all-cause deaths around 620,000-650,000. Another 6 months of COVID-19 deaths at the same rate we are experiencing now would surpass even that number and would match estimated U.S. deaths from the Spanish Flu pandemic of 1918-1920. I think we have reason to hope now that we can avoid that grim total. We now have an administration prepared to show actual Federal leadersip. Biden promised to make the pandemic his top priority, and he wasn’t kidding; almost half of his first 30 executive orders dealt with coronavirus, from mask-wearing requirements to manufacture and delivery of supplies to expanding testing capacity. But we all understand that it didn’t have to be this way in the first place; that serious and competent leadership from the start, although it couldn’t have stopped all spread of the virus, could have greatly reduced the deaths and economic impact we’ve experienced.