US Coronavirus death toll surpasses 200,000 amidst fears for winter season

The United States (US) has surpassed 200,000 deaths from the novel coronavirus till date.

According to a rolling tally by Johns Hopkins University, more than 200,000 US citizens have died and 6.86 million have been confirmed infected by COVID-19.

The US has had the world’s highest official death toll for months, ahead of Brazil and India, with 137,272 and 88,935 deaths respectively.

Overall, the US accounts for 4% of the world’s population and 20% of its recorded coronavirus deaths.

Critics say the statistics expose the Trump administration’s failure to meet its sternest test ahead of the November 3 election.

“Due to Donald Trump’s lies and incompetence in the past six months, (we) have seen one of the gravest losses of American life in history,” his Democratic rival Joe Biden said.

“With this crisis that required serious presidential leadership, he just wasn’t up to it. He froze… and America has paid the worst price of any nation in the world.”

While insisting that the United States is already “rounding the corner,” Trump has high hopes that the swift approval of a Covid-19 vaccine will boost his reelection chances.

“We will distribute a vaccine, we will defeat the virus, we will end the pandemic, and we will enter a new era of unprecedented prosperity, cooperation and peace,” Trump said in a recorded message to the UN General Assembly on Tuesday.

Trump has previously stated that by April of next year, most Americans who want to be immunized will have a vaccine.

But most experts argue that betting on vaccines is not a viable strategy.

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