The US death toll from coronavirus has surpassed 1mn, according to data from Johns Hopkins University.
Although the average daily pace of deaths in the US is less than a tenth of levels reached last winter, the grim milestone comes against the backdrop of rising cases around the country, which on Tuesday prompted New York City to raise its Covid-19 alert level to “high”.
The US averaged 263 deaths a day last week, according to the most recently updated data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. That is down from a recent high of 2,711 in early February during the winter wave caused by the Omicron variant. The peak was in mid-January 2021 at more than 3,400 deaths a day.
Over the past week, the US has averaged more than 90,300 new infections a day. That is up from an eight-month low of about 24,800 in late March, but well down on the record daily average of more than 808,500 in mid-January.
Adjusted for population, the seven-day average in the US of 0.07 deaths per 100,000 people is better than that in several western economies, according to the FT’s coronavirus tracker. It is slightly below that of the EU, more than half the rate in Canada and Australia and one-third that of the UK.
It has taken just under 15 months for the US coronavirus death toll to double from 500,000.
