Coronavirus death toll in US now exceeds that of Vietnam War

The coronavirus death toll in the U.S. officially exceeds the number of fatalities during the Vietnam War. 

Johns Hopkins University’s death toll in the country reached 58,351 as of Tuesday night, surpassing the 58,220 who died during the Vietnam War that lasted almost 20 years, according to the National Archives. 

President Trump has repeatedly compared the pandemic to fighting a war against the “invisible enemy.”

The Vietnam War is known for being the first war televised in U.S. living rooms, and the coronavirus pandemic is also believed to be the first covered during a televised daily news cycle.

About 30 percent of the deaths in the U.S. have occurred in New York, which has been badly struck by the virus, according to data from The New York Times. 

The number of confirmed cases in the U.S. surpassed 1 million on Tuesday, as the country has documented about a third of the cases confirmed worldwide. The U.S. death toll comprises more than a quarter of the number of deaths worldwide. 

Vietnam has currently reported 270 cases of coronavirus and no deaths, according to Johns Hopkins University.

Editor’s Note: This story has been updated to remove information that compared the death rate of U.S. soldiers in Vietnam to that of U.S. residents during the pandemic.