The US set a new record for daily Covid-19 deaths on December 2, with nearly 2,900 new fatalities reported. | Go Nakamura/Getty Images

The number of daily Covid-19 deaths in the US is now about the same as the number of people who died on 9/11.

On December 2, a staggering 2,885 Americans were reported to have died of Covid-19, according to the New York Times. It was the highest single-day toll of the year.

It was nearly the same number of people who died in the 9/11 attacks (2,977). And it was far more than the estimated 1,800 Americans who died over a matter of days when Hurricane Katrina struck the Gulf Coast in 2005. During World War II, from the Pearl Harbor attacks in December 1941 to Japan’s surrender, about 300 US soldiers died every day on average (and about