TEMPLE, Texas — The United States set a new world record this week, but it's not a record we should be proud of.
As of Monday, Feb. 22, the U.S. hit 500,000 deaths from COVID-19... in just a year. That's half-a-million people.
If you need help visualizing that number, let's put it into perspective.
Cities
If every single death came from the Central Texas cities of Waco, Temple, Belton and Killeen, it would wipe out all of these cities' population combined -- (377,991 combined in 2019), according to the U.S. Census.
If every single death came from Atlanta, it would equate to more than the city's population (488,800 in 2019).
Wars
It's more than the number of U.S. deaths in World War II (over 407,000), according to PBS.
It's nearly the number of total U.S. deaths in World War II, the Vietnam War and the Korean War combined, according to AP.
It's nearly 5 times the number of people who died from the Atomic Bombs in Japan (105,000 casualties in both Hiroshima and Nagasaki combined).
It's 167 times the number of people who died in the 9/11 attacks.
Illnesses
COVID-19 deaths are vast compared to other specific illnesses, according to Yahoo:
- Lung cancer: Killed 140,000 Americans
- Alzheimer's: Killed 121,000
- Breast cancer: 43,000
It's the third leading death caused by illnesses last year, right behind heart disease and cancer.
Other
Woodstock: That's 100,000 more than the number of people who attended Woodstock (400,000), according to the Musician's Hall of Fame.
Time: That's almost the number of minutes in a year (525,600 minutes)
Words: That's 100,000 words shy from the total number of English words in the Oxford Dictionary.
Elephants: That's more than the number of elephants left in the world (415,000), according to the World Wide Fund for Nature.
If you are a visual person: