CDC: US COVID-19 death toll tops 1 million

COVID-19 has killed 1million people in the U.S. since the pandemic started less than 2 1/2 years ago.

The grim milestone was announced Monday by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, The Associated Press reported.

The death toll is based on death certificate data compiled by the CDC. The actual number of deaths is believed to be much higher when counting deaths related to, but not caused by the actual virus; for instance, disruption to the health care system because of the pandemic.

The Biden administration, however, announced that the country surpassed 1 million deaths from the coronavirus last week, CBS News reported.

He made the announcement when the White House hosted the second Global COVID Summit, a virtual meeting of world leaders, nongovernmental organizations and private companies, according to CBS News.

To put it in perspective, the AP equated the number of coronavirus deaths roughly to the equivalent of:

A 9/11 attack every day for 336 days.
The number of death from both the Civil War and American soldiers in World War II combined.
If Boston and Pittsburgh were wiped out.
If Rhode Island was wiped out.

The number of those killed by COVID-19 is expected to continue to grow.

“It is hard to imagine a million people plucked from this earth,” Jennifer Nuzzo, from the Brown University School of Public Health’s pandemic center, told the AP. “It’s still happening and we are letting it happen.”

Three of every four coronavirus deaths were in those aged 65 and older. More men died than women. More white people died overall, but Black, Hispanic and Native American people were about twice as likely to die from COVID-19 than their white counterparts, the AP reported.