More than the number of Americans killed in battle in the five most recent wars combined: the Korean War, the Vietnam War, the Iraq War, the War in Afghanistan and the Persian Gulf War.

 

Coronavirus

 

This time last year, the headline we are facing today would have been unbelievable. Unfathomable. A sick joke. More than 200,000 people have died on American soil of a virus that, mere months ago, was completely unknown to us. Around the world, more than 970,000 lives have been lost. With no vaccine and no widely adopted solutions, the misery won’t be ending soon. 

We went back through our archives to see what it was like in those early days before the coronavirus pandemic became an international tragedy and changed nearly every aspect of our lives. 

The first time CNN.com reported on the virus was January 8. 

It was part of a so-called “mysterious pneumonia outbreak” in Wuhan, China. At the time, scientists reported no human-to-human transmissions and no deaths. We know now that the virus may have already been in the US at that time, silently lurking and spreading. 

The virus was compared to the SARS pandemic that killed 774 people in Asia in 2002 and 2003. To put that in perspective, since the first known US Covid-19 death on February 6, an average of more than 858 people have died in the United States from the disease every day -- an entire SARS pandemic every several hours. 

The first time you read about coronavirus in 5 Things was January 21. 

“A new virus in China is threatening to become a pandemic,” our subject line said. At the time, the official global death toll was six. By the time you finish reading this newsletter, at least six people in the world will have died of Covid-19 since you began. 

That’s not an exaggeration. There were 4,795 worldwide deaths yesterday. That’s three deaths per minute. 

To put it in another perspective, the total US coronavirus death toll is equivalent to one 9/11 attack every day for 66 days. The US coronavirus death toll is

No matter how you do the math, you’re left with truly horrifying figures. But those figures represent so much more. They represent real lives, real people who leave behind devastated families and unfinished legacies. People who, were it not for this virus, would probably still be alive today. No comparison can properly convey such a loss.