The United States has surpassed 200,000 deaths from the coronavirus pandemic, according to Johns Hopkins University, just eight months after the first positive case was identified in a Washington traveler on January 21. Since the pandemic reached global attention in early March, COVID-19 has wreaked havoc across the nation, sickening millions and leaving countless patients hospitalized with life-threatening complications.
The U.S. leads the world in coronavirus deaths and still has the most cases in the world, with over 6.8 million people sickened by the virus since January. There are more than 31 million cases worldwide and over 966,000 deaths.
The lives lost were not affected at random. Because pre-existing conditions factor so heavily into virus outcomes, data continues to show that COVID-19 disproportionately affects poor communities of color. According to the CDC, the majority of COVID-19 deaths during the early months of the pandemic occurred in communities with lower incomes and denser populations of people of color. And another potential surge of cases poses the greatest dangers for low-income communities and essential workers such as nurses, restaurant servers, teachers and more.