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The US death toll from coronavirus has climbed to more than 58,300, surpassing the deaths of Americans from the Vietnam War. More Americans have died from Covid-19-related illness within 3-months of the outbreak, than the 58,220 Americans who died over 2-decades in Vietnam. At least 17,000 troops died during the war’s deadliest year in 1968. On the deadliest single day during the war, 246 service members were killed on 31 January. Several daily US death tolls from coronavirus have eclipsed 2,000 lives. The data from Johns Hopkins University has indicated that the number of people who have been confirmed to have the virus reached more than 1 million on Tuesday.

On Monday, President was asked during a White House briefing whether a president should deserve re-election if more American lives have been lost within 6-weeks than during the Vietnam War and its aftermath. Donald Trump said the US has lost a lot of people but the original projections had initially predicted more than 2 million deaths. He said, “We’re probably heading to 60,000, 70,000. One person is far too many for this.” Trump has frequently compared himself to a wartime president facing an invisible enemy during the public health crisis.

It is noteworthy that coronavirus cases in the US have eclipsed every other country and now represent nearly a third of all global infections. The US deaths account for more than a quarter of the global death toll. The dramatic surge in infection follows a nationwide scramble to repair a significant shortfall in a testing capacity. Less than 100 cases were identified in the United States at the beginning of March. But, daily death tolls have reached more than 1,000 over the last several weeks. The US National Archive has indicated that approximately 58,200 people died during conflicts in Vietnam from 1955 through 1975, including 47,434 people who died in combat.