Coronavirus: US death toll reaches 100,000

American lives lost to Covid-19 have more than doubled within last month

More than 100,000 Americans have died following the nation's coronavirus outbreak, accounting for more than a quarter of all Covid-19-related deaths amid a global pandemic that has infected more than 5 million people, according to data from Johns Hopkins University.

Within only four months from the onset of the US outbreak, more Americans have died from coronavirus-related illness than from decades of conflicts in Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan combined.

US deaths have more than doubled within the last month, when the public health crisis reached 50,000 deaths on 24 April, one of the deadliest months in US history that saw the deaths of nearly 60,000 people by its end.

The grim marker stands in devastating contrast to the death tolls in other developed countries, while Donald Trump's shifting predictions, varying wildly from "zero" new infections to "hopefully" less than 100,000 deaths, have been eclipsed by a growing number of deaths that experts believe undercounts the lives lost from the virus.

On 15 May, the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention had projected the death toll would reach 100,000 by 1 June.

Analysts predicted that 100,000 Americans would die by mid-May following the CDC's release of "excess deaths" counts comparing observed deaths from all causes with historical trends.

Based on that data, a research team at the Yale School of Public Health estimated that the number of deaths was estimated to be about 1.5 times higher than officially reported figures.

More than 1.6 million people in the US have been infected with Covid-19, according to data from Johns Hopkins University.

Following the outbreak, no state was spared as it moved rapidly throughout the US. Hundreds of deaths have been reported daily. Health officials were reporting more than 2,000 deaths a day throughout April, April, one of the deadliest months in US history.

The incalculable loss of life and its impact among families and communities has upended American life for more than two months, as many cities and states begin emerging from quarantine "lockdowns" and lift restrictions on public life that experts say could lead to another spike in infections in the weeks to follow, as scientists and researchers race to craft a vaccine to combat the highly contagious virus.

Impatient to resume business as usual and get Americans back to work as unemployment skyrockets to Depression-level rates following business closures and sharp declines in revenue, the president has urged states to "reopen" even as they fall short of the recommended criteria in his own guidelines for lifting restrictions.

Nearly a dozen states are seeing double-digit percentage infection increases over their infection rates from the previous week, according to The Covid Tracking Project, and many cities continue to see stubbornly high death tolls.

The virus took hold in densely packed cities, but rural parts of the US are gripping with new infections and upticks in deaths.

As deaths inched closer to 100,000 over the Memorial Day weekend, Americans ventured outside to beaches, parties, golf courses and houses of worship, which the president had declared "essential" on Friday in his threat to "override" governors' orders against reopening to crowds.