A ripple effect of loss: U.S. COVID deaths approach 500,000

New York Times reporting: A nation numbed by misery and loss is confronting a number that still has the power to shock: 500,000. Roughly one year since the first known death by the coronavirus in the United States, an unfathomable toll is nearing — the loss of a half-million people. More Americans have perished from COVID-19 than on the battlefields of World War I, World War II and the Vietnam War combined. By now, about 1 in 670 Americans has died of it.