当美国人聚集在一起为又一个特别困难的一年的结束干杯时，许多亲人将会在节日庆祝活动中明显失踪，这提醒了人们冠状病毒疫情的悲惨现实。
周二，美国又达到了另一个惊人的里程碑，根据约翰·霍普金斯大学最新更新的数据，现在有80万美国人被证实死于冠状病毒。
“这将是我们这一代人的决定性悲剧，”约翰·霍普金斯彭博公共卫生学院的传染病流行病学家大卫·道迪告诉美国广播公司新闻。“我们已经到了对这些数字无动于衷的地步。但现在，我们几乎每个人都知道有人死于新冠肺炎。”
这个发人深省的标志出现在疫情不到两年的时间里，尽管近一年前引进了第一批冠状病毒疫苗。
“当我们纪念因新冠肺炎而死亡的80万美国人的悲惨里程碑时，我们记住了每个人和他们的生活，我们为留下的亲人祈祷。我知道盯着餐桌周围的空椅子是什么感觉，尤其是在节日期间，我为每个忍受这种痛苦的家庭感到心痛，”乔·拜登总统在周二晚上的一份声明中说。“要痊愈，我们必须记住。我们也必须采取行动。这正是我们在过去11个月里所做的事情。”
他赞扬了这些疫苗，并表示，截至目前，2亿美国人已经完全接种了疫苗，许多人每天都在接种疫苗。
“我敦促所有美国人:尽你们的爱国义务，保护我们国家的安全，保护你自己和你周围的人，缅怀所有我们失去的人。现在是时候了，”拜登说。
自去年12月以来，50万人丧生
当...的时候第一批新冠肺炎疫苗是去年12月实施的，许多美国人希望这些注射将预示着恢复正常。然而，自去年12月以来，又有50万美国人死于该病毒。其中，自2021年4月拜登总统上任以来，将近一半(23万人)失去了生命宣布疫苗现在每个18岁以上的美国人都可以广泛使用。
J.斯科特·阿普尔怀特/美联社
众议院议长南希·佩洛西、众议院少数党领袖凯文·麦卡锡和参议院..
波士顿儿童医院的流行病学家、美国广播公司新闻的撰稿人约翰·布朗斯坦博士说:“这些死亡中的绝大多数本来是可以避免的。“尽管有疫苗可用，但自去年12月第一批疫苗投入使用以来，我们已经看到近50万人死亡。”
每个州、城市和城镇的美国人都感受到了病毒的个人影响和连锁反应。
一;一个分析《美国国家科学院院刊》发表的《用丧亲乘数追踪新冠肺炎亲人损失的广泛范围》估计，720万家庭成员可能正在为病毒导致的亲人死亡而悲伤。
新冠肺炎造成的惊人死亡人数现在高于过去40年中死于艾滋病相关疾病的70万美国人。这一数字高于自1900年以来在战斗中死亡的美军总人数，大约相当于北达科他州的人口。美国也记录了比世界上任何其他国家都多的死亡和病例。
“在这个国家，几乎两年来，每隔一分钟，这个故事就会重演。当你读完这个(故事)时，会有其他人死于这种疾病，”道迪说。
尽管死亡率明显低于去年1月全国最高峰时的水平，但据报道，平均每天仍有1000多名美国人死于该病毒。
“[平均水平]是欧洲等地大多数国家的两倍多，尽管它们的病例比我们多。这是我们社会持续的失败，”道迪说。
一些专家认为，目前新冠肺炎的死亡人数可能被大大低估，因为各州和地方的报告不一致，并且排除了过多的死亡人数，这是一个衡量如果疫情没有发生，有多少人丧生的指标。
这个疫情显然还没有结束
在疫情早期，即使是最高的死亡人数预测似乎也是不可想象的。
研究发现，这种病毒可能存在于美国早在2019年12月，尽管根据专家的说法，大范围传播可能直到2020年2月下旬才出现。
新冠肺炎的死亡人数是前总统唐纳德·特朗普的八倍一旦声明，在疫情的早期。
“最低数量是10万人，我认为我们将大大低于这个数字...因此，我们将看到最终会是什么，但看起来我们将走向一个大大低于10万的数字，”特朗普在2020年4月表示。
预测预测，随着美国面临又一场冬季病毒卷土重来，有可能在2021年底前再有数千人丧生。
专家表示，疫苗犹豫不决、天气寒冷、限制放松、高度可传播的德尔塔变种以及疫苗免疫力随着时间的推移而减弱等综合因素都是导致死亡人数上升的原因。
“这个疫情显然还没有结束，”UMass纪念医疗保健公司总裁兼首席执行官埃里克·迪克森博士告诉美国广播公司新闻。“对我们中的一些人来说，这确实是整个疫情最艰难的时期。”
根据疾病控制和预防中心的数据，尽管目前60%的美国人已经完全接种了新冠肺炎疫苗，但仍有9500万美国人完全没有接种疫苗，因此面临感染、严重疾病和死亡的风险。
现在，有了新的对omicron变体的担忧，健康专家敦促美国人尽快得到提升。根据疾控中心的数据，大约有5000万人——占完全接种疫苗的美国人的25%——接受了额外的疫苗剂量。
根据2021年9月汇编的联邦数据，与接种疫苗的人相比，未接种疫苗的人检测新冠肺炎阳性的风险高5.8倍，死亡风险高14倍。
尽管全国所有形式的公共交通都需要遮盖，但新冠肺炎的限制已经变得很少，现在很少有司法管辖区要求遮盖面部或保持社交距离。
布朗斯坦说:“疫苗耐药性加上迅速恢复正常生活，是以悲惨的生命损失为代价的。
即将到来的寒假的其余时间也继续是专家们关注的一个主要问题，因为许多社区在感恩节后发现病例和住院人数都有所增加。
“虽然许多人已经尽了自己的一份力量，但我们仍有数千万符合条件的人尚未认识到接种疫苗带来的好处可以避免巨大的生命损失。这种分歧意味着，我们走向100万人丧生的毁灭性征程变得更加确定，”布朗斯坦说。
'A defining tragedy': US COVID death toll eclipses 800,000 as winter surge intensifies
As Americans gather to toast the end of another particularly difficult year, many loved ones will be notably missing from holiday celebrations, a glaring reminder of the tragic realities of the coronavirus pandemic.
On Tuesday, the United States reached yet another staggering milestone, with 800,000 Americans now confirmed lost to the coronavirus, according to newly updated data from Johns Hopkins University.
"This will be a defining tragedy of our generation," David Dowdy, an infectious disease epidemiologist at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, told ABC News. "We've gotten to the point where our eyes glaze over on these numbers. But by now, almost every one of us knows someone who has died of COVID-19."
The sobering marker comes less than two years into the pandemic, and despite the introduction of the first coronavirus vaccines, nearly one year ago.
"As we mark the tragic milestone of 800,000 American deaths due to COVID-19, we remember each person and the lives they lived, and we pray for the loved ones left behind. I know what it’s like to stare at an empty chair around the kitchen table, especially during the holiday season, and my heart aches for every family enduring this pain," President Joe Biden said in a statement Tuesday evening. "To heal, we must remember. We must also act. That’s exactly what we have done over the past 11 months."
He praised the vaccines and said that as of now, 200 million Americans are fully vaccinated, and many are getting boosted every day.
"I urge all Americans: do your patriotic duty to keep our country safe, to protect yourself and those around you, and to honor the memory of all those we have lost. Now is the time," Biden said.
Half a million lives lost since last December
Whenthe first COVID-19 vaccineswere administered last December, many Americans hoped the shots would herald a return to normalcy. However, since last December, an additional 500,000 Americans have died of the virus. Of those, just shy of half -- 230,000 -- lost their lives since April 2021, when President Bidenannounced the vaccinewas now widely available to every American over the age of 18.
"The vast majority of these deaths could have been avoided," said Dr. John Brownstein, an epidemiologist at Boston Children's Hospital and an ABC News contributor. "Despite the availability of vaccines, we have seen close to half a million deaths since first shots went into arms last December."
Americans in every state, city and town have felt the personal impact and ripple effect of the virus.
Ananalysistracking the extensive reach of COVID-19 loss of kin with a bereavement multiplier, published by the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, estimated that 7.2 million family members may be grieving the loss of a loved one due to the virus.
The staggering number of deaths due to COVID-19 is now higher than the 700,000 Americans who have died from AIDS-related illnesses over the last four decades. It is higher than the total number of American troops who have died in battle since 1900, and about the same as the population of North Dakota. The U.S. has also recorded more deaths -- and cases -- than any other country in the world.
"Every other minute in this country, for almost two years now, that story has repeated itself. By the time you finish reading this [story], someone else will have died of this disease," Dowdy said.
Although the death rate is significantly lower than it was at the nation's peak last January, on average, more than 1,000 Americans are still being reported lost to the virus each day.
"[The average] is more than twice the rate of most countries in places like Europe, even though they have more cases than we do. This is an ongoing failure of our society," said Dowdy.
Some experts believe that the current COVID-19 death count could potentially be greatly undercounted, due to inconsistent reporting by states and localities, and the exclusion of excess deaths, a measure of how many lives have been lost beyond what would be expected if the pandemic had not occurred.
'This pandemic is clearly not over'
In the early days of the pandemic, even the highest death toll projections seemed unimaginable.
Studies have found that the virus was present in the U.S., potentiallyas early as December 2019, although widespread transmission likely did not occur until late February 2020, according to experts.
The COVID-19 death toll is now eight times what former President Donald Trumponce stated, in the early days of the pandemic.
"The minimum number was 100,000 lives, and I think we'll be substantially under that number... So we'll see what it ends up being, but it looks like we're headed to a number substantially below 100,000," Trump said in April 2020.
Forecasts predict that as the U.S. faces yet another winter viral resurgence, and it is possible that thousands more lives could be lost before the end of 2021.
Experts say that a confluence of factors, such as vaccine hesitancy, cold weather, relaxed restrictions, the highly transmissible delta variant and the impact of waning vaccine immunity over time have all contributed to the higher death toll.
"This pandemic is clearly not over," UMass Memorial Health Care President and CEO Dr. Eric Dickson told ABC News. "This is really the toughest period of this whole pandemic right now for some of us."
Although 60% of Americans are currently fully vaccinated against COVID-19, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 95 million Americans remain completely unvaccinated, and thus at risk for infection, severe illness and death.
Now, with newconcerns over the omicron variant, health experts are urging Americans to get boosted as soon as possible. About 50 million people – 25% of fully vaccinated Americans -- have received an additional vaccine dose, according to the CDC.
Unvaccinated individuals had a 5.8 times greater risk of testing positive for COVID-19 and a 14 times greater risk of dying from it, as compared to vaccinated individuals, according to federal data compiled in September 2021.
Although masking is required in all forms of public transportation across the country, COVID-19 restrictions have become sparse, with few jurisdictions now requiring face coverings or social distancing.
"Vaccine resistance coupled with a rapid return to normal life has been at the expense of a tragic loss of life," Brownstein said.
The rest of the upcoming winter holidays also continue to be a major source of concern for experts, after many communities saw an increase in cases and hospitalizations following Thanksgiving.
"While so many have done their part, we still have tens of millions of eligible people who have yet to recognize the tremendous loss of life that can be averted with the benefit that comes from getting vaccinated. This divide means that our devastating march to a million lives lost becomes even more certain," Brownstein said.
