美国周二达到了又一个严峻的里程碑冠状病毒死亡人数超过40万，就在当选总统乔·拜登宣誓就职的前一天。

失去的生命数量可能是纽约麦迪逊广场花园的近20倍，大致相当于佛罗里达州坦帕或俄克拉荷马州塔尔萨的人口。

一项由美国国防部汇编的数据分析显示，这40万人的死亡人数超过了一战、二战和越战期间美国士兵死亡人数的总和退伍军人事务部表演。

根据约翰·霍普金斯大学收集的数据，12月14日，美国确认的新冠肺炎死亡人数超过30万，这是一个多月前的事情，距离1月2日美国报告的死亡人数达到35万只有17天。

“美国达到了40万(新冠肺炎)人死亡的荒唐里程碑，这应该会阻止我们继续前进。约翰·霍普金斯大学公共卫生研究员珍妮弗·努佐(Jennifer Nuzzo)对美国广播公司新闻(ABC News)表示:“我们应该要求我们的领导人解释，为什么仅在上个月，他们就允许10万美国人在没有采取行动阻止这种可怕的生命损失的情况下死亡。”

在全球范围内，这种病毒已经夺去了200多万人的生命。美国约占全球新冠肺炎相关死亡人数的19.5%，约有18.8万人死亡，排在第二大重灾区巴西之前。美国仅占全球人口的4%多一点。

几个月来，专家们一直警告说，如果美国人不采取必要的安全预防措施来保护自己和他人过冬，特别是在假期，许多人将遭受后果。

在一次白宫特别行动中新闻发布会3月29日，总统唐纳德·特朗普他说，如果美国能够将死亡人数保持在10万至20万之间，这将意味着政府“做得非常好”

然而，截至劳动节，已经有189，000名美国人死亡，10月，美国顶尖疾病专家安东尼·福奇博士警告说，死亡人数可能会急剧增加。

福奇在华盛顿特区美国大学的一次虚拟活动中说:“这些模型告诉我们，如果我们不在秋冬季节做我们需要做的事情，我们可能会有30万到40万新冠肺炎人死亡。”

这些总数远远超过了工作队的早期估计，现在，即将上任的拜登政府警告说，“黑暗的冬天”还没有结束。拜登提名罗谢尔·瓦伦斯基博士担任疾病控制和预防中心的下一任主任，他周日告诉哥伦比亚广播公司“面对国家”，到2月中旬，“我们预计这个国家有50万人死于新冠肺炎”。

瓦伦斯基补充说:“我们还没有看到假日旅行、假日聚会、高住院率和随后的死亡率所带来的后果。”

美国目前平均每天不到3300例新冠状病毒相关死亡，本月初，记录的COVID相关死亡超过53000例，即每30秒约有1例美国死亡。

“我们不能让自己对这种道德和领导力的失败麻木不仁。我们必须加倍努力阻止病毒传播，”努佐说。

这一里程碑事件也发生在距离该国首例确诊COVID-19病例一周年仅几天前，该病例于2020年1月21日报告疾病控制中心。

美国的病例总数现已超过2400万，但全国七天平均每日病例数目前正从上周早些时候创下的纪录高点下降——平均每天约有207，000例新确诊病例。

贾斯汀·哈默尔通过路透社

热诺维娃·加西亚在女儿们的支持下，向结婚52年的丈夫何塞·加西亚哭诉

这比上周一报道的最高纪录有所下降，尽管该国在11周内报告的病例还不到10万。

全国住院人数也有所下降，目前全国住院患者不到12.4万人，低于本周早些时候的13.2万人。

令人震惊的新冠肺炎数字也是在美国疾病预防控制中心(CDC)一份新报告的消息发布后出现的，该报告警告称，如果不“普遍和加强遵守”戴口罩和社交距离，英国的变异可能会使美国的疫情恶化。根据美国广播公司新闻的统计，这种新的变种被认为比以前的毒株更具传染性，现在已经在至少20个州被发现。

根据前食品和药物管理局专员斯科特·戈特利布博士的说法，这种变异的病例数量可能“每周翻一番”。戈特利布在接受哥伦比亚广播公司《面对国家》采访时说:“大约五周后，这将开始接管。”

随着死亡人数继续上升，州政府官员继续叫嚣着给居民接种疫苗，以拼命降低死亡率。

卫生和公众服务部部长亚历克斯·阿扎尔上周总结说:“每一剂疫苗都放在仓库里，而不是放在手臂上，这可能意味着又有一人死亡，而这本来是可以避免的。”。

US coronavirus death toll eclipses 400,000 as Biden prepares to take office

The U.S. reached yet another grim milestone Tuesday as the confirmedcoronavirusdeath toll topped 400,000, just one day before President-elect Joe Biden is set to take the oath of office.

The number of lives lost could fill Madison Square Garden in New York City nearly 20 times over and is roughly equivalent to the population of Tampa, Florida, or Tulsa, Oklahoma.

The 400,000 lives lost is more deaths than the number of U.S. soldiers that died in battle during World War I, World War II and the Vietnam War combined, an analysis of data compiled by theDepartment of Veterans Affairsshows.

The milestone comes just over a month after the country surpassed 300,000 confirmed COVID-19 deaths on Dec. 14, and only 17 days since the U.S. hit 350,000 reported deaths on Jan. 2, according to data collected by Johns Hopkins University.

“That the U.S. reached the grotesque milestone of 400,000 [COVID-19] deaths should stop us in our tracks. We should demand from our leaders an explanation of why they’ve allowed, in the last month alone, 100,000 Americans to die without taking action to stop this horrific loss of life,” Jennifer Nuzzo, a public health researcher at Johns Hopkins, told ABC News.

Globally, the virus has claimed more than 2 million lives. The U.S. accounts for approximately 19.5% of the world's COVID-19 related deaths -- about 188,000 reported deaths ahead of the second hardest-hit nation, Brazil. The United States makes up just over 4% of the global population.

Experts had been warning for months that if Americans did not take the necessary safety precautions to protect themselves and others over the winter -- and in particular, over the holidays -- many people would suffer the consequences.

During a White House Task Forcepress briefingMarch 29, PresidentDonald Trumpsaid that if the U.S. could keep the death toll between 100,000 to 200,000 lives lost, it would mean that the administration had “done a very good job.”

However, by Labor Day, there were already 189,000 Americans dead, and in October, Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nation’s top disease expert, warned that the number of fatalities could dramatically increase.

“The models tell us if we don’t do what we need to in the fall and winter, we could have 300,000 to 400,000 COVID-19 deaths,” Fauci said during a virtual event with the American University in Washington, D.C.

The totals have far eclipsed the task force's early estimates, and now, the incoming Biden administration is warning that the "dark winter" is not over yet. Dr. Rochelle Walensky, who Biden nominated to serve as the next director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, told CBS' “Face the Nation” on Sunday that by the middle of February, “we expect half a million deaths in this country” from COVID-19.

“We still yet haven't seen the ramifications of what happened from the holiday travel, from holiday gatherings, in terms of high rates of hospitalizations and the deaths thereafter," Walensky added.

The U.S. currently averages just under 3,300 new coronavirus related deaths a day, and the beginning of the month, there have been more than 53,000 COVID-19 related deaths recorded -- that is approximately 1 American death reported every 30 seconds.

“We can’t let ourselves get numb to this moral and leadership failing. We must double down on efforts to stop the virus from spreading,” Nuzzo said.

The milestone also comes just days shy of the one-year anniversary of the country's first confirmed COVID-19 case, which was reported on Jan. 21, 2020, according to theCDC.

U.S. case totals now top 24 million, but the national seven-day average of daily cases is currently trending down from the record high set earlier last week -- averaging approximately 207,000 new confirmed cases a day.

This is a drop from the record high reported last Monday, though the country has not seen a day with fewer than 100,000 reported cases in 11 weeks.

Hospitalizations have also dropped nationally, with just under 124,000 patients currently hospitalized across the country, down from 132,000, earlier this week.

The staggering COVID-19 numbers also follows news of a new CDC report, which warned that the U.K. variant could worsen the pandemic in the U.S., without “universal and increased compliance” with mask-wearing and social distancing. The new variant, which is believed to be more contagious than previous strains, has now been discovered in at least 20 states, according to an ABC News count.

The number of cases of this variant are likely to "double every week," according to Dr. Scott Gottlieb, former Food and Drug Administration commissioner. "In about five weeks, this is going to start to take over," Gottlieb said during an interview on CBS' "Face the Nation."

And as the death toll continues to rise, state officials continue to clamor to vaccinate their residents, in a desperate effort to slow the death rate.

“Every vaccine dose sitting in a warehouse rather than going into an arm could mean one more death that could have been avoided,” Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar concluded last week.