The U.S. now has more then 200,000 coronavirus deaths
22 September 2020
Data: The Center for Systems Science and Engineering at Johns Hopkins; Chart: Axios Visuals
The coronavirus has now killed 200,000 Americans, according to Johns Hopkins data.
The big picture: Whatever contextyou try to put this in, it is a catastrophe of historic proportions — and is yet another reminder of America's horrific failure to contain the virus.
- The coronavirus has killed a bigger share of the American population than it has in almost any other wealthy country.
- The death toll here is equivalent to roughly 65 Sept. 11 attacks. Three times more Americans have died from COVID than died in the Vietnam war — in only a fraction of the time.
This crisis has hit people of color especially hard.
- Black and Latino Americans are dying at about three times the rate of white Americans.
- They have also suffered far more from the economic fallout, which has fallen largely on lower-wage, service-industry workers.
And deaths keep coming — we’re averaging roughly 830 per day — even as the country increasingly sees the pandemic as background noise, as live sports resume and schools reopen and interest in news about the pandemic wanes.
Between the lines: The percentage of infected people who ultimately die from the coronavirus is lower now than it was in the outbreak’s earliest months, partly because doctors have gotten better at treating the virus and partly because outbreaks are now occurring within younger and lower-risk groups.
- Overall cases are on a downward trajectory right now, following an enormous spike over the summer.
- But the U.S. has never managed to get the virus firmly under control. Cases and deaths could get worse again as the weather gets colder and people move indoors, and the onset of flu season could make treatment more difficult.
Go deeper:We blew it
Transcripts show George Floyd told police "I can't breathe" over 20 times
Section2Newly released transcripts of bodycam footage from the Minneapolis Police Department show that George Floyd told officers he could not breathe more than 20 times in the moments leading up to his death.
Why it matters: Floyd's killing sparked a national wave of Black Lives Matter protests and an ongoing reckoning over systemic racism in the United States. The transcripts "offer one the most thorough and dramatic accounts" before Floyd's death, The New York Times writes.
The state of play: The transcripts were released as former officer Thomas Lane seeks to have the charges that he aided in Floyd's death thrown out in court, per the Times. He is one of four officers who have been charged.
- The filings also include a 60-page transcript of an interview with Lane. He said he "felt maybe that something was going on" when asked if he believed that Floyd was having a medical emergency at the time.
What the transcripts say:
- Floyd told the officers he was claustrophobic as they tried to get him into the squad car.
- The transcripts also show Floyd saying, "Momma, I love you. Tell my kids I love them. I'm dead."
- Former officer Derek Chauvin, who had his knee on Floyd's neck for over eight minutes, told Floyd, "Then stop talking, stop yelling, it takes a heck of a lot of oxygen to talk."
Read the transcripts via DocumentCloud.