Yet another grim milestone and a reminder that it didn't have to be this way.

Source: AFP

US fatalities from Covid-19 surpassed 700,000 on Friday, according to figures from Johns Hopkins University, a toll roughly equivalent to the population of the nation's capital Washington.

The grim threshold comes with an average of well over 1,000 dying each day, in a country where 55.7 percent of the population is now fully vaccinated, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

After a heavily criticized early response to the pandemic, the United States organized an effective vaccine roll-out -- only to see a significant portion of Americans still refusing to get the shots.

The United States finds itself having notched the most fatalities in the world, far exceeding other frontrunners such as Brazil and India, and facing a resurgence in cases due to the prominence of the highly contagious Delta variant.

Breaking News: Over 700,000 Americans have died of Covid-19. This pandemic is the deadliest in U.S. history, overtaking the toll from the influenza pandemic of 1918 and 1919. Every age group under 55 saw its highest death toll of the pandemic this August. https://t.co/mNP4pysUKq pic.twitter.com/X9FhcZFtey

— The New York Times (@nytimes) October 1, 2021

What's 7 times incalculable?
The number of lost American lives from Covid passed 700,000 tonight pic.twitter.com/060U9J9C75

— Eric Topol (@EricTopol) October 1, 2021

CNN: On Friday, the United States passed 700,000 deaths from Covid-19, 108 days after it reached 600,000 Covid-19 deaths.

— Jim Acosta (@Acosta) October 2, 2021