COVID deaths hit 900,000 while number cases fall in 49 of 50 states

With omicron easing, new cases of COVID-19 in the U.S. are falling in 49 of the 50 states, even as the nation’s death toll hits 900,000.

Propelled in part by the wildly contagious omicron variant, the U.S. death toll from COVID-19 has hit 900,000, less than two months after eclipsing 800,000. The number of deaths, as compiled by Johns Hopkins University, is more than the populations of Indianapolis, San Francisco, or Charlottes, North Carolina.

COVID-19 has become one of the three top leading causes of death in America, behind the big two — heart disease and cancer.

To public health experts, the milestone is made all the more tragic because so many of the recent deaths were preventable. Just 64% of the U.S. population is fully vaccinated.

New cases per day have tanked by almost a half-million nationwide since mid-January, the curve trending downward in every state but Maine.