Worldwide deaths related to Covid-19 have surpassed five million, according to a Reuters tally, with unvaccinated people particularly exposed to the virulent Delta strain.
The variant has exposed the wide disparities in vaccination rates between rich and poor nations, and the upshot of vaccine hesitancy in some western nations.
More than half of all global deaths reported on a seven-day average were in the United States, Russia, Brazil, Mexico and India.
More than 700,000 people alone have died from coronavirus in the US, according to figures from Johns Hopkins University, a toll roughly equivalent to the population of the nation's capital Washington, DC.
The grim threshold comes with an average of well over 1,000 dying each day, in a country where 55.7% of the population is now fully vaccinated, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
After a heavily criticised early response to the pandemic, the United States organised an effective vaccine roll-out - only to see a significant portion of Americans still refusing to get the shots.
Coronavirus misinformation has been rampant in the country, and masking remains a political issue, dividing many US citizens.
Some Republican governors, such as those in Texas and Florida, have sought to ban mandatory masking in their states, citing individual freedoms.
The Governor of California Newsom said yesterday that it was to become the first US state to mandate statewide Covid-19 vaccinations for schoolchildren as early as January.
In Washington, hundreds of thousands of white flags fluttered on the grass on the National Mall, not far from the White House, as somber reminders of those who have died of Covid in the United States.
More than half of the world has yet to receive at least one dose of a Covid-19 vaccine, according to Our World in Data.
It took almost over a year for the death toll to hit 2.5 million, while the next 2.5 million deaths were recorded in 236 days, according to a Reuters analysis.
Globally an average of 8,000 deaths were reported daily over the last week, accounting for five deaths every minute.
