More than 80,000 Americans have died after contracting the novel coronavirus, according to a database kept by Johns Hopkins University.
All 80,000 deaths have occurred in the last three months. The first deaths linked to COVID-19 were recorded in February, though some health experts believe that the virus may have been spreading undetected for weeks.
According to the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of Washington — a projection model routinely used by the White House — at least 1,900 people have died of COVID-19 each day since April 8. According to federal government estimates, about 1,500 people died in Hurricane Katrina in 2005.
Across the country, 1.3 million Americans are confirmed to have contracted the disease, and more than 200,000 people are confirmed to have fully recovered. Experts believe that those figures are likely much higher than recorded, but the lack of sufficient testing capabilities has suppressed those figures.
The United States still leads the world in the number of confirmed COVID-19 cases and deaths linked to the disease. Over the weekend, worldwide cases of the disease topped 4 million.
Spain, Russia, the United Kingdom and Italy are the only other countries to have more than 200,000 confirmed cases of the virus. The UK ranks second worldwide in deaths, with more than 30,000.
Spain, Italy and the UK all have higher death rates per 1 million cases than the U.S., according to Johns Hopkins.
The total cases in China — the epicenter of the virus outbreak — have remained flat at about 80,000 for weeks. U.S. intelligence officials have expressed skepticism with the figures China has been reporting.
