U.S. surpasses 300,000 coronavirus deaths

COVID-19 testing site.
(Image credit: KENA BETANCUR/AFP via Getty Images)

The United States on Monday surpassed 300,000 confirmed COVID-19-related deaths, data from Johns Hopkins University reveals.

The U.S. is the first country in the world to cross the grim threshold since the pandemic began earlier this year — indeed, no other country has yet recorded 200,000 deaths.

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The sobering news comes the same day as one of the brightest moments of the pandemic: when the first health care workers in the U.S. received their initial dose of the coronavirus vaccine developed by Pfizer and BioNTech, which received an emergency use authorization from the Food and Drug Administration last week.

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Tim O'Donnell

Tim is a staff writer at The Week and has contributed to Bedford and Bowery and The New York Transatlantic. He is a graduate of Occidental College and NYU's journalism school. Tim enjoys writing about baseball, Europe, and extinct megafauna. He lives in New York City.