Prayers needed: More than 5 million people have died of COVID

The latest tally of deaths includes 745,800 dead in the United States.

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On All Souls Day, as Catholics all over the world are praying for their beloved departed, the number of dead who have died of COVID-19 has surpassed 5 million.

According to data compiled by the Johns Hopkins University (JHU) Coronavirus Resource Center, which has been tracking COVID-19 cases around the world since the global pandemic began, over 746,000 Americans have died of the disease since it was discovered in Wuhan, China in 2019.

That grim statistic exceeds the number of deaths in the United States due to the 1918 influenza pandemic, which the Centers for Disease Control estimates was about 675,000.

Increase in “excess” deaths

A reliable way to determine the cost in lives due to the coronavirus pandemic is by comparing the expected number of deaths (based on census data) to the number of deaths today. If there are more deaths than were expected, these are considered “excess” deaths.

The United States reported 3,440,708 deaths of all ages for year 2020. Expected deaths were 3,026,944. That is an increase of 413,764 deaths (13.7%) for 2020.