Mukund Patel
Chicago: More than 200,000 Americans have lost their lives to Covid-19 since the start of the coronavirus pandemic, and the toll is still rising.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the US’s total Covid-19 cases numbered 68,74,982 and total deaths were 201,088 as of September 23, 2020, at noon.
The latest reports put the numbers at 71,85,516 and 207,538, respectively.
The death toll could still go up in the coming winter.
The numbers may increase rapidly once schools and other educational institutions reopen.
Now almost all states have been reopened, with some restrictions in place.
Public life has been thrown out of gear since the pandemic started.
With many office staff working online from home, public transportation is running a thin number of passengers.
Many parking spaces in big cities and downtown are empty where the people once jostled for space each morning, before the pandemic. People are also avoiding indoor restaurants.
Meanwhile, the government believes that the US will have a vaccine by the end of this year.
The Trump Administration has launched Operation Warp Speed (OWS), a public-private partnership, to facilitate and accelerate the development, manufacturing,
and distribution of Covid-19 vaccines, therapeutics, and diagnostics. The OWS goal is to produce and deliver 300 million doses of safe and effective vaccines with the initial doses available by January 2021.
The OWS and other private partners are developing a plan for delivering a safe and effective product to Americans as quickly and reliably as possible.
“As part of OWS, we have been laying the groundwork for months to
distribute and administer a safe and effective Covid-19 vaccine as soon as it meets the Food and Drug Administration (FDA)’s gold standard,” Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) secretary Alex Azar said in a press release.
