US coronavirus death toll tops 90,000

The coronavirus has killed at least 90,000 people in the U.S.

The death toll, based on Johns Hopkins data, is by far the largest in the world, though numbers from China have been met with skepticism. Following the U.S., the United Kingdom is second in official deaths with nearly 35,000, followed by Italy with roughly 32,000. 

The U.S. total of 90,312, which happened in just over three months, also far surpasses the number of people who died due to seasonal influenza this year, which the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates is 62,000 over a period of about six months.

Anthony Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, last week said he thinks the death toll is “almost certainly higher” than the reported numbers because of the likelihood that some deaths went unrecorded as a result of overwhelmed hospitals.

Despite the devastatingly high death toll, the number is actually considered a “lagging indicator,” since the people who died were likely infected weeks ago. The deaths are not necessarily a current indicator of the current severity of the crisis.

Currently, there are more than 1.5 million confirmed cases in the country, and that number continues to rise, especially among rural counties. 

Still, many areas of the country have begun to loosen lockdown requirements aimed at stopping the spread of the virus.