US death toll from COVID-19 hits 900,000, sped by omicron

By MARK KENNEDY and KEN SWEET
Associated Press

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 Charlotte, North Carolina. 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. President Joe Biden acknowledged the pandemic has been “incredibly difficult to bear” and again urged Americans to get vaccinations and booster shots.