Over 800,000 Americans have now died from COVID-19 – the highest national death toll from the global pandemic

The United States has surpassed a grim milestone, recording over 800,000 COVID deaths during the pandemic. It comes as the U.S. reaches 50 million confirmed cases of COVID on Monday.

Most deaths have been recorded among the unvaccinated and the elderly, and more Americans died in 2021 than in 2020.

The US is again seeing deaths rising at an alarming rate

The last 100,000 deaths came in just the past 11 weeks, a quicker pace than any at other point aside from last winter’s surge.

“The waves of illness that we’re seeing will continue until the population-level immunity is high enough to prevent them. Quite simply, we’re not there yet,” said Dr Keri Althoff, an epidemiologist at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.

In a statement from the White House, President Joe Biden says “Today, more than 200 million Americans are fully vaccinated, and each day, more people are getting boosted than ever before. As we head into the winter and confront a new variant, we must resolve to keep fighting this virus together. This means getting vaccinated and getting your booster shot, and taking other prevention measures, such as masking.”

Public health experts are still figuring out what impact the new Omicron variant may have this winter, but officials are urging Americans to get booster shots to combat waning protection.