U.S. COVID-19 Death Toll Nears 500,000

Nearly 500,000 people have now died from COVID-19 in the U-S — more than in any other country.

But at the same time, there are some signs of hope: The average daily number of cases in the U.S. has dropped by more than 40% in the last two weeks. And the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Sunday that around 43 million people have received at least one dose of a COVID-19 vaccine.

Here & Now's Peter O'Dowd speaks with Dr. Peter Hotez, co-director of the Center for Vaccine Development at Texas Children's Hospital and dean of the National School of Tropical Medicine at Baylor College of Medicine, about the death toll.