Deaths from Covid-19 surpassed 700,000 in the United States on Saturday, while deaths worldwide topped five million, according to figures from Johns Hopkins University and a Reuters tally.

The United States is the worst affected country in the world with about 15% of deaths worldwide.

The death toll – roughly equivalent to the population of the nation’s capital, Washington, DC – was reached on Friday evening. The grim threshold comes with an average of more than 1,000 deaths per day, in a country where 55.7% of the population is now fully vaccinated, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The last 100,000 deaths came at a time when vaccines, which massively prevent death, hospitalization and serious illness, were available to every American over 12 years of age.

In Washington DC, 695,000 white flags at the National Mall have become a poignant reminder of the human tragedy of the pandemic.

Each flag, planted in neat squares on 20 acres of grass just north of the Washington Monument, represents a person who died from Covid-19 in the United States.

Entitled “In America: Remember,” this thought-provoking memorial, on display in Washington, DC through October 3, is the work of Maryland artist Suzanne Brennan Firstenberg. With the sea of ​​plastic flags, many of which feature handwritten dedications to lost loved ones, “we take back the human dignity of each of these people who have been squeezed and … outnumbered,” Firstenberg said at a ceremony opening on September 17th. .

A dark “frustrating” American stage

The milestone reached with 700,000 deaths in the United States is particularly frustrating for public health leaders and front-line medical professionals, as vaccines have been available to all eligible Americans for almost six months and injections protect massively against hospitalizations and deaths. An estimated 70 million eligible Americans remain unvaccinated, providing ignition for the variant.

“You are losing Covid-19 patients and that shouldn’t happen,” said Debi Delapaz, nurse manager at UF Health Jacksonville, who recalled how the hospital was losing eight patients a day to Covid-19 at one point. 19 during the summer wave. “This is something that shouldn’t happen,” she told The Associated Press on Saturday.

After a strongly criticized early response to the pandemic, the United States organized an effective deployment of the vaccine with sometimes more than four million injections per day.

The campaign, however, has since slowed down considerably as a significant portion of U.S. citizens still refuse to be vaccinated, just as the highly contagious Delta variant of the coronavirus has torn the country apart, pushing the death toll from 600,000 to 700,000 in three and a half months.

The US state of Florida has suffered the most from Covid

The state of Florida has suffered by far the most fatalities of any state during this period, with the virus having killed an estimated 17,000 residents since mid-June. Texas was second with 13,000 deaths.

The two states account for 15% of the country’s population, but more than 30% of the country’s deaths since the country crossed the 600,000 threshold.

More than half of all deaths worldwide reported over an average of seven days have been in the United States, Russia, Brazil, Mexico and India.

14,889 deaths in Greece

In Greece, the total number of deaths from Covid-19 since the start of the pandemic has risen to 14,889.

Greek health officials said on Saturday that 95.4% of deaths were either from an underlying disease or were over 70 years old.