'Did not have to be this high': U.S. approaching one million COVID-19 deaths
CHICAGO (CBS) -- We are nearing a grim milestone in the COVID-19 pandemic with one million American deaths.
As CBS 2's Meredith Barack shows us, it's a number experts said they did not think we'd hit.
"Early in this pandemic, people were talking about 100,000 deaths as being a number that we would never reach," said David Dowdy, Associate Professor of Epidemiology, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.
Now, we are on the cusp of one million.
"They did not have to be this high for sure."
A number Dowdy said, unfortunately, does not mark the end of the pandemic.
"Cases have more than tripled in the United States in the past five weeks. But hospitalizations during that time have only gone up by about a third and deaths are still flatlining," Dowdy said.
Dowdy noted that the average case is becoming milder for young, healthy, vaccinated people. But those people still pose a risk to others with compromised immune systems.
"It's important for us to take this time as we reach this milestone to really thing back about what has happened and what we can do better going forward. We've lost a million grandparents and spouses and parents, and so, to really think about what that means for us as a society."
Parents and grandparents like Marylyn Eiccholz.
"She was a vibrant woman. She could run circles around both of us," said her daughter Kim Gross.
Eiccholz passed away on March 29, 2020, at the very beginning of the pandemic. Her daughters Amy and Kim said tests were scarce, few people were masking, and the COVID vaccine didn't exist.
Hospitals were also still figuring out the best way to care for COVID patients.
"She never should have been in that position where she should have passed, we don't think, had it been different," said Kim Gross.
The sisters said they now rely on the memories of their bubbly, beloved mother, and are in disbelief others are still suffering the same loss.
"I cannot wrap my head around how this has become what it has. And it makes it that much harder that we're one of the families that went through it," said daughter Amy Green.
The United States' current seven-day average for daily deaths sits between 300 and 400.