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In not even three months since the first 

 U.S. deaths from COVID-19, more lives have now been lost to the coronavirus pandemic on U.S. soil than the 58,220 Americans who died over nearly two decades in Vietnam.

Early Tuesday evening ET, the U.S. death toll reached 58,365, 

While the number of lives lost in the U.S. during the pandemic and the U.S. death toll in that war are roughly the same now, the death rate from the coronavirus in America is considerably higher. It now stands at about 17.6 deaths per 100,000 inhabitants.

During 1968, the deadliest year for the U.S. in Vietnam, the 

 of 16,899 occurred at about half the pandemic's rate — 8.5 troops were killed for every 100,000 U.S. residents.

The pandemic has also been marked by nationwide death tolls surpassing 2,000 on six days this month. The highest daily toll for Americans fighting in the Vietnam War was on 

, when 246 U.S. personnel were killed during the Tet Offensive.

There are other parallels — as well as contrasts — between that conflagration and what's unfolding now.

It was television that brought a war on the other side of the world into Americans' living rooms for the first time, as on-the-ground reporters chronicled the grinding mayhem of Vietnam for evening network news shows.

By the same token, this pandemic may be the first ever to be televised on a daily basis.

But while the five presidents — from Dwight Eisenhower to Gerald Ford — who held office during the Vietnam conflict only occasionally spoke to the nation about the clash, the American public has seen President Trump casting himself as a wartime leader and dominating lengthy news conferences televised live nightly from the White House.

The claims Trump has made in his pandemic pronouncements — from 

 his administration had "tremendous" control over the virus to 

 the news media of trying to "inflame" the outbreak — have done little to boost his credibility. Fewer than a quarter of the respondents in a 

 professed a high level of trust in Trump.

Likewise, as early as 1966, critics of President Lyndon Johnson's upbeat portrayals of an increasingly unpopular war pointed to a "credibility gap." It was 

 by then-Sen. Ernest Gruening, D-Alaska, as "a euphemism for what actually goes on — namely, that the American people are being misled by their government officials."

 a single COVID-19 death, and as of April 24, it had 268 confirmed cases.

A closer parallel to the total of lives lost so far to the pandemic in the U.S. may be the 2017-2018 flu season, the deadliest in the past decade. There were 61,000 influenza-related deaths nationally 

 by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention for a roughly 

Health

COVID-19

David Welna

Author

The number of lives taken by COVID-19 in the U.S. has reached a grim milestone: More people have died of the disease than the 58,220 Americans who perished in the Vietnam War.

Coronavirus has now killed more Americans than Vietnam War

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