US death toll from coronavirus hits 200,000

Updated: Sep 22, 2020 / 11:11 AM CDT

FILE – In this April 29, 2020, file photo, workers move bodies to a refrigerated truck from the Andrew T. Cleckley Funeral Home in the Brooklyn borough of New York. During the deadliest days of the coronavirus outbreak in New York City, the bodies piled up at the funeral home — and the stench that came with it — at an alarming rate. Cleckley says what happened next made him the scapegoat for an unforeseen crisis — hundreds of COVID-19 deaths a day in New York that overwhelmed funeral homes across the city. Authorities swept in and suspended his license in an episode that made headlines in a city already reeling from other horrors of the pandemic. (AP Photo/Craig Ruttle)

NEW YORK (NewsNation Now) — The U.S. death toll from the coronavirus topped 200,000 Tuesday, the highest in world, according to Johns Hopkins University’s count based on figures supplied by state health authorities.

Deaths are running at close to 770 a day on average and reflects America’s standing, held for five months as the world’s leader in numbers of confirmed infections and deaths.

Only five countries — Peru, Bolivia, Chile, Spain and Brazil — rank higher in COVID-19 deaths per capita. Brazil is No. 2 on the list of the countries with the most deaths, with about 137,000, followed by India with approximately 89,000 and Mexico with around 74,000.

Worldwide, the virus has infected more than 31 million people and is closing in fast on 1 million deaths, with over 965,000 lives lost, by Johns Hopkins’ count.

The real number of dead from the crisis could be higher: As many as 215,000 more people than usual died in the U.S. from all causes during the first seven months of 2020, according to CDC figures. The death toll from COVID-19 during the same period was put at about 150,000 by Johns Hopkins.

Researchers suspect some coronavirus deaths were overlooked, while other deaths may have been caused indirectly by the crisis, by creating such turmoil that people with chronic conditions such as diabetes or heart disease were unable or unwilling to get treatment.