More People Have Died of COVID This Year Than Last
The good news: the CDC just opened up boosters to everyone over 18.
TOM PHILPOTT
In the popular imagination, 2020 gets all the bad press, but this year has been no sunny day at the beach, either. Sure, several effective COVID-19 vaccines emerged, but so did the the highly contagious Delta variant, as well as new, more virulent strains of anti-vax sentiment, tightly yoked to conservative political ideology. Worst of all, intellectual property hoarding has meant that the vaccines have so far largely bypassed low-income nations of the global south, wreaking untold human misery and giving the virus ample opportunity to generate more contagious and/or more virulent strains.
Add it all up and you have a persistent pandemic, one that has just reached yet another grim milestone: As of Nov. 20, the number of US Covid-19 deaths sustained in 2021 has shot past the toll in the unspeakable year of 2020, The Wall Street Journal reports.
As hospitalizations tick up yet again and cases surge in Europe, experts worry about impending Thanksgiving travel and closed-door get-togethers.
One thing Mokdad didn’t mention was that on Nov. 19, the CDC declared “all adults over 18” eligible for a COVID-19 booster dose. You probably can’t convince your Trumpy uncle to get a jab before the holiday. But now you can get a booster.
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