(WHTM) – On December 12, 2021, the death toll from COVID-19 in the United States reached 800,000. This happened just before the one-year anniversary of the first COVID-19 vaccine administered in the United States. This first injection was given to New York nurse Sandra Lindsay on December 14, 2020.
From the first case of COVID-19 detected in the United States to rising death tolls to major vaccine developments, here is a timeline of COVID-19 milestones both in the country and in Pennsylvania.
On January 20, 2020, the CDC confirmed the first case of COVID-19 in the United States from samples taken in Washington state. The first “presumptive positive” COVID-19 cases in Pennsylvania occurred in March.
As of May 2020, experts estimated 100,000 Americans had died from COVID-19 – more than the Vietnam and Korean Wars combined.
By the end of the day on November 24, 2020, an additional 144 deaths attributed to COVID-19 brought Pennsylvania’s death toll from the virus to 10,000. That number doubled over the next two months to more than 20,000 deaths attributed to the virus by the end of the day on January 20, 2021.
The first coronavirus vaccine administered in the United States entered the arm of New York nurse Sandra Lindsay on December 14, 2020.
On January 19, 2021, nearly a year after the first coronavirus case was reported in the United States, the country surpassed 400,000 deaths attributed to COVID-19. It took less than five weeks for the death toll to drop from 300,000 to 400,000.
The FDA granted emergency use authorization for the Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine to be administered to adolescents aged 12 to 15 years on May 12, 2021.
As of August 6, 2021, 50% of the entire U.S. population was fully vaccinated against COVID-19. Governor Tom Wolf tweeted on August 16 that more than 80% of adults in Pennsylvania had received at least one dose of the COVID-19 vaccines. At that time, 63.43% of adults in Pennsylvania were fully immunized.
After the daily death toll attributed to COVID-19 declined during the warmer months, it started to rise again as fall approached. Pennsylvania’s death toll topped 30,000 deaths associated with COVID-19 in October 2021.
U.S. health officials approved a child-sized dose of Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine for children aged 5 to 11 on November 2, 2021.
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After initially opening the booster shots to people meeting certain criteria, the FDA made the COVID-19 boosters available to anyone 18 years of age or older on November 19, 2021.
The death toll in the United States associated with COVID-19 reached 800,000 on December 12, 2021. That’s more than double the population of Pittsburgh.
In 2021, more than 450,000 people in the United States have died after contracting the virus through December 12.
