More than 700,000 people have succumbed to Covid-19 in the United States since the start of the pandemic, according to the Johns Hopkins University count on Friday, the equivalent of the population of the capital Washington. This dark course serves as a reminder that hundreds of Americans continue to die from the coronavirus every day, despite the vaccination campaign.
The United States is officially by far the country with the heaviest coronavirus death toll, according to data communicated by authorities around the world, ahead of Brazil and India. A stone’s throw from the White House, hundreds of thousands of small white flags pay homage to these mowed lives. Unvaccinated people are still vulnerable to the disease.
Vaccination in slow motion
They are still numerous in the United States: the vaccination campaign launched with a bang by the American authorities in December – and which had reached a peak in April, with sometimes more than four million injections per day – has slowed down sharply. Just over 64% of the U.S. population, or 215 million people, have received at least one dose of one of three vaccines licensed in the country, according to health officials. Despite a slower start in their vaccination campaigns, several European countries have now largely overtaken the United States.
Wearing a mask and vaccination remain political issues that divide many Americans. Some Republican governors, such as those of Texas or Florida, even wanted to introduce bans on compulsory mask wearing in their states, invoking the protection of sacrosanct individual freedoms. Conversely, the Democratic state of California announced Friday its intention to make vaccination compulsory for all eligible students, a decision unprecedented in the country.