Washington – The United States, which has reported the world’s worst overall Covid-19 death toll, has “no doubt” been undercounting fatal cases, said top pandemic advisor Anthony Fauci on Sunday.
The US has officially lost over 581,000 people to the disease caused by the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus – but a University of Washington study released Thursday estimated deaths at more than 900,000.
“That’s a bit more than I would have thought the undercounting was,” Fauci said.
“But I think there’s no doubt… that we are and have been undercounting.”
The country has reported over 32.6 million cases since the virus was first identified at the end pf 2019 in China.
America was battered by a spike in cases and deaths following the end-of-year holidays, but since January new infections have come down as vaccination rates have jumped.
“We are turning the corner. We have 58% of adult Americans with at least one shot, over 110 million Americans fully vaccinated,” said White House Covid-19 coordinator Jeffrey Zients.
President Joe Biden wants 70% of adults in the US to have received at least one shot of the Covid-19 vaccine by the July 4 Independence Day holiday.
But the rate peaked around 10 April and has been declining since then, with vaccine hold-outs slowing the race to population immunity.
