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Propelled in part by the wildly contagious omicron variant, the US death toll from COVID-19 hit 900,000 on Friday, less than two months after eclipsing 800,000.

The two-year total, as compiled by Johns Hopkins University, is greater than the population of Indianapolis, San Francisco, or Charlotte, North Carolina.

The milestone comes more than 13 months into a vaccination drive that has been beset by misinformation and political and legal strife, though the shots have proved safe and highly effective at preventing serious illness and death.

"It is an astronomically high number. If you had told most Americans two years ago as this pandemic was getting going that 900,000 Americans would die over the next few years, I think most people would not have believed it," said Dr. Ashish K. Jha, dean of the Brown University School of Public Health.

He lamented that most of the deaths happened after the vaccine gained authorization.

"We got the medical science right. We failed on the social science. We failed on how to help people get vaccinated, to combat disinformation, to not politicize this," Jha said. "Those are the places where we have failed as America."

President Joe Biden lamented the milestone in a statement Friday night, saying, "After nearly two years, I know that the emotional, physical, and psychological weight of this pandemic has been incredibly difficult to bear."

He again urged Americans to get vaccinations and booster shots. "Two hundred and fifty million Americans have stepped up to protect themselves, their families, and their communities by getting at least one shot - and we have saved more than one million American lives as a result," Biden said.

Just 64% of the population is fully vaccinated, or about 212 million Americans, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Nor is COVID-19 finished with the United States: Jha said the US could reach 1 million deaths by April.

Among the dead is Susan Glister-Berg, 53, of Sterling Heights, Michigan, whose children had to take her off a ventilator just before Thanksgiving after COVID-19 ravaged her lungs and kidneys.

"She's always cared more about people than she did herself. She always took care of everyone," said a daughter, Hali Fortuna. "That's how we all describe her: She cared for everyone. Very selfless."

Glister-Berg, a smoker, was in poor health, and was apparently unvaccinated, according to her daughter. Fortuna just got the booster herself.

"We all want it to go away. I personally don't see it going away anytime soon," she said. "I guess it's about learning to live with it and hoping we all learn to take care of each other better."

The latest bleak milestone came as omicron is loosening its grip on the country.

New cases per day have plunged by almost a half-million since mid-January, when they hit a record-shattering peak of more than 800,000. Cases have been declining in 49 states in the last two weeks, by Johns Hopkins' count, and the 50th, Maine, reported that confirmed infections are falling there, too, dropping sharply over the past week.

Also, the number of Americans in the hospital with COVID-19 has declined 15% since mid-January to about 124,000.

Deaths are still running high at more than 2,400 per day on average, the most since last winter. And they are on the rise in at least 35 states, reflecting the lag between when victims become infected and when they succumb.

Still, public health officials have expressed hope that the worst of omicron is coming to an end. While they caution that things could still go bad again and dangerous new variants could emerge, some places are already talking about easing precautions.

Los Angeles County may end outdoor mask requirements in a few weeks, Public Health Director Dr. Barbara Ferrer said Thursday.

"Post-surge does not imply that the pandemic is over or that transmission is low, or that there will not be unpredictable waves of surges in the future," she warned.

Despite its wealth and its world-class medical institutions, the U.S. has the highest reported toll of any country, and even then, the real number of lives lost directly or indirectly to the coronavirus is thought to be significantly higher.

Experts believe some COVID-19 deaths have been misattributed to other conditions. And some Americans are thought to have died of chronic illnesses such as heart disease and diabetes because they were unable or unwilling to obtain treatment during the crisis.

The Rev. Gina Anderson-Cloud, senior pastor of Fredericksburg United Methodist Church in Virginia, lost her dementia-stricken father after he was hospitalized for cancer surgery and then isolated in a COVID-19 ward. He went into cardiac arrest, was revived, but died about a week later.

She had planned to be by his bedside, but the rules barred her from going to the hospital.

"I think it's important for us not to be numbed. Each one of those numbers is someone," she said of the death toll. "Those are mothers, fathers, children, our elders."

When the vaccine was rolled out in mid-December 2020, the death toll stood at about 300,000. It hit 600,000 in mid-June 2021 and 700,000 on Oct. 1. On Dec. 14, it reached 800,000.

It took just 51 more days to get to 900,000, the fastest 100,000 jump since last winter.

"We have underestimated our enemy here, and we have under-prepared to protect ourselves," said Dr. Joshua M. Sharfstein, a public health professor at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. "We've learned a tremendous amount of humility in the face of a lethal and contagious respiratory virus."

The latest 100,000 deaths encompass those caused by both the delta variant and omicron, which began spreading rapidly in December and became the predominant version in the US before the month was out.

While omicron has proved less likely to cause severe illness than delta, the sheer number of people who became infected with it contributed to the high number of deaths.

Ja said he and other medical professionals are frustrated that policymakers are seemingly running out of ideas for getting people to roll up their sleeves.

"There aren't a whole lot of tools left. We need to double down and come up with new ones," he said.

COVID-19 has become one of the top three causes of death in America, behind the big two - heart disease and cancer.

"We have been fighting among ourselves about tools that actually do save lives. Just the sheer amount of politics and misinformation around vaccines, which are remarkably effective and safe, is staggering," Sharfstein said.

He added: "This is the consequence."

Nepal recorded 1, 714 new Covid-19 cases and nine deaths on Saturday. 

With this, the country's active caseload mounted to 1,099,303. Similarly, the death toll has climbed to 11,803. 

According to the Ministry of Health and Population, 5,225 swab samples were tested in the RT-PCR method, of which 1,103 returned positive. Likewise, 3,288 people underwent antigen tests, of which 611 tested positive.

The Ministry said that 4,771 infected people recovered from the disease in the last 24 hours.

As of today, there are 52,780 active cases in the country. 

The Ministry said that 51,434 people are staying in home isolation while 1, 346 are in institutionalized isolation.

Of them, 251 are in Intensive Care Unit and 41 are on ventilators.

Meanwhile, the Kathmandu Valley reported 463 new cases today.

According to the Ministry, 316 cases are reported in Kathmandu, 104 in Lalitpur and 43 in Bhaktapur.

There was a time when coffee table books and guidebooks made the major chunk of annual book sales. Bookstores catered to tourists and the occasional local, making the book business a seasonal one. Even until the pandemic, the vast majority of Nepalis were only reading popular bestsellers (think Paulo Coelho and Chetan Bhagat) and those mandated by their curriculum or career. Reading for pleasure or self-improvement wasn’t the norm but the Covid-19 lockdowns changed that, say those in the book business. Now, Nepalis are reading more than ever and their reading tastes are varied. Book businesses have had to up their game to cater to the demand.

 “We have more books coming in than ever before,” says Rishab Sharma of Pilgrims Book House. “Our selection is based on what’s popular internationally as well as publishers’ recommendations.” Fiction, he adds, seems to be an all-time favorite while self-help and business-related books are right up there. Manish Sharma Ghimire, founder of Book Corner Nepal, agrees with Sharma and says there are more people reading self-help these days because it helps them make sense of these turbulent times. “People are also recommending books to their friends as tools to cope. We have many people looking for certain books that they heard about from their friends. ‘Atomic Habits’ by James Clear is one book that became popular by word of mouth,” says Ghimire.

 Social media, especially Instagram and Tiktok, seems to further fuel people’s interest and curiosity in books. The book/reading communities in these platforms have shone the spotlight on many authors and their works. Fantasy series by Cassandra Clare, Sarah J. Maas, and Leigh Bardugo are a few examples of books social media helped popularize. Dhan Bahadur Lamsal, proprietor of Fewa Book Shop in Lakeside, Pokhara, says in the recent years he has had to tweak his business module to include promotions on Instagram and other social media. His daughters handle this aspect of the business because without promoting reading and his bookstore on social media, he might as well as shut shop permanently. “A lot of youngsters come to our store asking for books they have heard about on Tiktok. We need to be abreast of what’s popular and trending,” he says.

 According to bookstore owners, the readership is primarily in English. Books in Nepali don’t sell many copies though there is a niche crowd that reads literature in our native language. Fiction sells more than non-fiction and even in fiction, fantasy seems to be the preferred genre. At any point of time, there seems to be a crowd-favorite. Ghimire says books adapted into Netflix series are widely popular. People often read the book before watching the show or if the show was good, they pick up the book expecting it to be better. Uday Agarwal of Books Nepal says collectors’ editions of such series have a good market as people want to own a piece of their favorite fantasy world.

 Madhab Maharjan, owner of Mandala Book Point in Jamal, Kathmandu, says people are finally getting into reading. Many teenagers and young adults started reading during the pandemic as they had all this extra time that they didn’t want to waste. They were looking to improve their skills and learn about new things. “Today, our education system is multidisciplinary and isn’t limited to textbooks. That, I feel, has made reading compulsory,” says Maharjan.

However, he laments that ours isn’t a conducive environment for reading. There aren’t good public libraries and not everyone can afford to buy every book they want to read. Sharma of Pilgrims Book House says books have become expensive internationally after the pandemic because of labor shortage. Books that earlier used to cost around Rs 600-700 are now priced at Rs 900-1,000.

On a brighter note, there are some establishments that let people borrow books for a nominal fee. Book Corner Nepal lets you borrow two a month for a monthly membership fee of Rs 500. Sanu ko Pustakalaya in Manbhawan, Lalitpur, a memorial library founded by Priyansha Silwal, is open from 11 am to 6 pm from Monday to Saturday. You can borrow two books at a time for an annual membership of Rs 1,000, excluding a refundable deposit of Rs 500. Silwal says people seem to prefer fiction more than non-fiction. Those who read non-fiction gravitate towards self-help, books on startups, and psychology, she says. The biggest challenge of running a library, she says, is definitely preserving the paperbacks. Apart from maintaining the books, Sanu ko Pustakalaya wants to work on its children’s section as a lot of parents come searching for books for their 10-to 14-year-olds.

This culture of parents choosing books for their children worries Maharjan. “Many parents still don’t bring children into bookstores. They will buy the books for them but letting children roam around books and choose for themselves will foster a love for books and reading,” he says. Children, he adds, should be encouraged to maintain a reading journal. It will help cultivate a writing habit as well as develop their analytical skills from early on. However, Maharjan admits the change he has seen in people’s perception of books and reading is a hopeful one. People want to discover new writers and voices, he says. He believes access to the internet has made it possible for people to know about upcoming authors and prize winners. Hearing authors talk about their books makes them more intriguing, he says.

The good thing is that while earlier Nepalis had to wait a long time to get their hands on new releases, that isn’t the case now. Sharma says books used to be first published in the US or the UK and then the Indian edition would come out months later. Since Nepal gets books mostly from Indian publishers, that set us back at least a year. But now books are being launched simultaneously in the US, the UK, and India and publishers also take pre-orders which makes them available on release day or soon thereafter.

Sujan Chaudhary of Books Mantra says Nepali publishing houses are also getting the rights for popular titles and printing the books here. There are currently over 25 books being reprinted in Nepal. “We definitely have to work on the paper quality but this system has made books cheaper and more readily available,” says Chaudhary. Maharjan, on the other hand, believes the media can play a crucial role in

further popularizing books and reading. “Book reviews and discussions can spark an interest in those who have yet to discover the fascinating world that is reading,” he says.

Two persons died when a jeep they were travelling in met with an accident at Dhobadi in Biruwa Rural Municipality-3 in Syangja.

The deceased have been identified as jeep driver Bal Bahadur Thapa (26) and Bhesh Bahadur Thapa (32) of Biruwa Rural Municipality, DSP Rajendra Prasad Adhikari said.

The incident occurred when the jeep (Ga 1 Ja 5939) heading towards Khali from Biruwa fell some 500 metres down the road, he said.

The bodies have been sent to the District Hospital Syangja for postmortem, police said.