COVID19 Deaths Pass 300,000
Back in March, when the virus was still relatively new and limited mainly to a few significant pockets like New York, Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, predicted that it might kill up to 240,000 Americans. Unfortunately, the US surpassed that landmark on November 8 and the end is nowhere in sight.
During the early phase of the pandemic, the deadliest day in the United States was April 15 when daily deaths reached 2,752. By April 25, a total of 50,000 people had died from COVID19. It took only 36 days for the total number of deaths to double and reach 100,000 on May 31. The death rate slowed somewhat during the summer and an average of 850 COVID19 patients were dying each day. The death rate accelerated in late October and early November, reaching a 7-day average of 2300 deaths per day. By December 9, the daily death toll reached a record high of 3,124. By comparison, the number of people killed on September 11, 2001 was 2,977.
The following table shows the date at which each additional 50,000 deaths was recorded by the COVID Tracking Project and the number of days required to reach each milestone.
| Date | Number of Deaths | Days to Increase 50K |
| February 26, 2020 | 2 | |
| April 25, 2020 | 50,175 | 59 |
| May 31, 2020 | 100,127 | 36 |
| August 5, 2020 | 150,321 | 66 |
| October 2, 2020 | 200,787 | 58 |
| November 24, 2020 | 251,529 | 51 |
| December 14, 2020 | 300,586 | 20 |
As can be seen, the death rate has greatly accelerated in late November and early December. During the past two weeks, COVID19 became the leading cause of death in the US, surpassing heart disease and cancer. One person is dying every 36 seconds from COVID19.
Since July, the COVID19 case fatality rate has remained at about 1.5 percent, but the number of daily COVID19 cases has increased to a 7-day average of 213,293. Multiplying the number of daily cases times 1.5 percent, leads to an average of 3,199 deaths per day. At that rate, the US will add 50,000 deaths every 16 days. Since deaths lag cases by about three weeks, this is the number of daily deaths that the US can expect in late December and early January. Of course, the death rate could accelerate even more if the daily number of cases continues to increase and if hospitals become so overwhelmed, they must ration health care
