Coronavirus Has Killed More Americans than 5 Recent U.S. Military Conflicts

By Daniel Villarreal

NW - Writer

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The ongoing coronavirus pandemic has now claimed more American lives than the total number of U.S. soldiers killed during historic conflicts in Vietnam, Korean, Iraq, Afghanistan and World War I.

While the aforementioned conflicts killed 155,072 soldiers, according to the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA), the U.S. coronavirus epidemic has claimed over 205,600 as of October 5, 2020, according to Johns Hopkins University. In fact, the number of U.S. COVID-19 deaths surpassed 155,000 in late July, according to Johns Hopkins.

The VA states that 4,431 American soldiers died in the Iraq invasion from 2003 to 2010, 2,445 American soldiers died in Afghanistan skirmishes from 2001 onward, 58,220 American soldiers died in the Vietnam conflict from 1964 to 1975, 36,574 American soldiers died in the Korean conflict from 1950 to 1953 and 53,402 Americans died in World War I from 1917 to 1918.

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Since the end of March, COVID-19 has killed an average of 7,043 Americans each week.

U.S. COVID-19 coronavirus American wars John Hopkins

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Despite the high number of deaths, Republican President Donald Trump falsely claimed in a Tuesday morning tweet that coronavirus is "in most populations far less lethal" than the flu. According to estimates from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), Trump is wrong. Though the flu kills tens of thousands of Americans each year and, the CDC states, COVID-19 has killed more Americans in 2020 than the approximately 178,000 Americans killed by flu over the last six years.

The "typical" flu season lasts for a seven-month period from October to April. But unlike the flu, COVID-19 has no "season," has no vaccine to give people immunity and has been studied far less as it was completely unknown of before this year.

Infectious disease epidemiologist Adam Kucharski has said that COVID-19 is 10 times deadlier than the flu because its infection fatality rate is 10 times higher.

COVID-19 also has a longer incubation period than the flu, according to the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy. While a person with the flu will exhibit symptoms within two days of contracting the illness, a person with COVID-19 can exhibit symptoms anywhere between one to 14 days after contracting it, giving a person more time to transmit the virus to others before they realize they have it.

There's also increasing evidence that COVID-19 has long-term effects that linger after the disease's initial symptoms have passed, including brain fog, chronic fatigue, joint pain, lung damage and heart damage.

On Tuesday, the Food and Drug Administration published guidelines meant to maintain safety in the development of any COVID-19 vaccines, according to U.S. News.

The guidelines, which were initially opposed by the Trump administration, require vaccine developers seeking emergency approval to monitor the health of all experimental trial participants for two months after the trial's conclusion to ensure no negative after-effects.

The guidelines all but ensure that a COVID-19 vaccine won't be publicly available until after Election Day on November 3.

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