Kat Orozco spends a light moment with Mark Aviv, during lunch at the Grand Central Market on the first day that California reopened its economy in downtown Los Angeles on June 15, 2021.
Image Credit: LA Times
Highlights
COVID hit America hard, as the world's powerful nation recorded the most number of COVID-19 infections, at 33.5 million cases.
It also sustained the most number of coronavirus deaths — 602,000 as of June 20, 2022 — more than double the 291,557 US casualties during World War II, which lasted five years.
Now, with nearly 46% of the population fully vaccinated, at least 42 states have fully reopened, with face masks no longer mandatory.
The latest state-by-state reopening updates.
After more than a year of mask and stay-in-place mandates, America is reopening. At least 41 states have already reopened, with no masks required, as of Monday (June 21, 2021). Other states have either reopened or have set a reopening criteria, with masks required indoors for the unvaccinated. In most states, new cases are down more than 90% from their peaks, in some cases, up to 99%.
Did the US finally "flatten the curve"?
COVID hit America hard. Since March 2020, the world's powerful nation recorded the most number of COVID-19 infections, with 33.5 million cases. It also sustained the most number of COVID deaths — 602,000 as of June 20, 2021. That's more than twice the 291,557 US casualties from World War II, which lasted five years.
The trends are heading in the right direction across its 50 states. Today, the US has become the world’s leading nation in mRNA vaccinations, with 150 million people fully vaccinated, representing 45.7% of the nation's population. With 177.3 million having had at least 1 dose, its vaccine deployment rate is among the highest in the world.
Image Credit: Seyyed de la Llata / JHU / OurWorldInData
Data gathered by Johns Hopkins University show that new daily cases of the coronavirus peaked at 300,779 January 8, 2021. Six months later, after the massive vaccination ramp, new daily cases were down to a seven-day average of 11,243 as of Tuesday, June 21, 2021 — a 96.2% drop.
Park visitors get emotional inside Disneyland as the theme park reopened for the first time in more than a year on April 30, 2021. California lifted most of its coronavirus safety restrictions last week, and theme parks are continuing to reopen in phases — but a handful of the COVID-era changes are likely to stick.
Commuters wearing face masks wait for their bus amid the coronavirus pandemic on in Arlington, Virginia.
Bottles of COVID-19 vaccines from Johnson & Johnson, Moderna, and Pfizer, with hypodermics needles, photographed at the COVID-19 vaccination site at Kedren Community Health Center, in Los Angeles, CA, Thursday, May 13, 2021.
A student at Esteban Torres High School in Los Angeles receives a COVID-19 vaccination shot on May 27, 2021.
Democratic US presidential nominee and former Vice President Joe Biden speaks during a campaign speech in which he never removed his mask for the duration of the speech, while discussing the death toll from the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) outbreak in the United States exceeding 200,000 people, at the Wisconsin Aluminium Foundry in Manitowoc, Wisconsin, US, September 21, 2020.
Christiana Neri, 38, holds her 13-year-old son Ivan Hernandez as Sequoia Hutton administers the Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine at a mobile vaccine clinic held for people age 12 and over at Roosevelt Park on Friday, May 14, 2021, in Los Angeles.
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42 states: Mask mandates removed
A state-by-state status update, based on Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Centre, OurWorldinData, and the New York Times reports [We're updating this list as new information becomes available]: