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As the nation is set to pass another dark milestone in the virus’s long, deadly march — with no end in sight — the political battles over how to curb its spread have stolen much of the nation’s attention, making it more difficult to notice just how searing each death’s impact can be. Two hundred thousand deaths is akin to losing the entire population of Salt Lake City or Montgomery, Ala. — a devastation. It is also the number of covid-19 fatalities that President Trump said at a March 29 news conference would mean that “we all together have done a very good job.” (Fisher, Gowen, Rozsa and Sacchetti, 9/19)

In the predawn hours of March 30, Dr. Deborah Birx stepped in front of the camera on the White House lawn and made an alarming prediction about the coronavirus, which had, by then, killed fewer than 3,000 people in the United States. "If we do things together, well, almost perfectly, we can get in the range of 100,000 to 200,000 fatalities," Birx, coordinator of the White House coronavirus task force, told Savannah Guthrie of NBC News' "Today" show. ... On Saturday, Birx's prediction came true, as the number of lives lost to Covid-19 in the U.S. topped 200,000. (Edwards and Chow, 9/19)

The United States is closing in on the somber milestone of 200,000 deaths from Covid-19 as more than half of states are reporting a rise in cases. The climb comes after many states had seen case numbers decline following a summer resurgence of infections. (Holcombe, 9/21)

The loved ones left behind are trapped in an extraordinary state of torment. They have seen their spouses, parents and siblings fall ill from the virus. They have endured the deaths from a distance, through cellphone connections or shaky FaceTime feeds. Now they are left to grieve, in a country still firmly gripped by the coronavirus pandemic, where everywhere they turn is a reminder of their pain. That aftermath has been uniquely complicated, and cruel. In dozens of conversations, people across the United States who have lost family members to the coronavirus described a maelstrom of unsettled frustration, anger and isolation, all of it intensified by the feeling that the pandemic is impossible to shut out. (Bosman, Kovaleski and Fortin, 9/20)

It is a staggering toll, almost 200,000 people dead from the coronavirus in the United States, and nearly five times that many — close to one million people — around the world. And the pandemic, which sent cases spiking skyward in many countries and then trending downward after lockdowns, has reached a precarious point. Will countries like the United States see the virus continue to slow in the months ahead? Or is a new surge on the way? (Romero, Fernandez and Santora, 9/20)

Even as the U.S. nears 200,000 Covid-19 deaths, HHS testing czar Brett Giroir said Sunday morning that progress was being made on many fronts. “From the peaks in early July and late July, the number of cases are down by 41 percent,” the Health and Human Services official told CNN’s Jake Tapper. “The number of people in an ICU are down 62 percent. The number of deaths are down almost 30 percent. But we have to stay strong and do the things that could decrease the spread.” (Weaver, 9/20)