The dramatic drop in US Covid mortality is due to vaccination and previous infections

Key Takeaways:

• According to experts quoted in The New York Times, the number of coronavirus-related deaths in the United States has dropped considerably since most people now have immunity - either from immunization or prior infection.

Experts stated in The New York Times that the frequency of coronavirus-related deaths in the US had decreased dramatically since most people now have immunity - either from immunizations or earlier infection. In the United States, the death rate is nearing the pandemic's lowest point.

230 Covid-related deaths were recorded on June 16, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). This figure was over 2,200 three months ago, on February 16, when the United States was fighting an Omicron-driven outbreak. The seven-day moving average of new Covid-related deaths is now at 266, about a tenth of what it was in January.

"There were still substantial pockets of people who hadn't been vaccinated or revealed to the virus in previous waves, and so they were at the same risk of dying as people at the beginning of the pandemic," Dr. David Dowdy, an epidemiologist at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, told The New York Times. "Those pockets are no longer there."

There have been over ten lakh Covid-related deaths in the US, with more than three lakh documented up until January 2021. A year later, in January 2022, the figure surpassed eight lakh.

However, the United States has experienced a total of 1.16 lakh deaths through February 2022.

The general level of immunity is much higher than it was earlier, according to an associate professor of public health at the University of Arizona, Dr. Joe Gerald, who told The New York Times that because Americans who weren't immunized or infected got Covid during in the Omicron surge from January to early March, the overall level of immunity is much higher.

"Due to the mix of infection and vaccine, our level of community immunity leading into this wave was substantially higher than it's ever been," he added.

This drop has also been related to milder symptoms, according to experts. "What we're seeing is that the average Covid-19 case is becoming much milder," said Dr. Dowdy.

'Overall, the folks who have been coming through with Covid are much less unwell than they were even this winter,' said Dr. Megan Ranney, an emergency physician at Brown University.

However, there are still some red flags, as many Americans refuse to receive booster vaccine doses, implying that the decoupling of cases and deaths may not remain. Immunity to the virus could wane, especially given the constant threat of a more elusive variety developing through mutations.

"We could be caught off guard later this year," said Dr. Abraar Karan, an infectious disease physician at Stanford University. "As the period since people are vaccinated longer and longer, the efficacy of the immune response will be diminished."