US approaches coronavirus death toll of 500,000

President Joe Biden walks past freezers used to store Pfizer’s Covid-19 vaccine as he tours a Pfizer manufacturing site (AP)

The US stands on the brink of a once-unthinkable tally: 500,000 people lost to the coronavirus.

A year into the pandemic, the running total of lives lost is 498,897 – roughly the population of Kansas City, Missouri, and just shy of the size of Atlanta.