Yahoo Finance's Anjalee Khemlani breaks down social gathering worries over COVID-19 ahead of the Thanksgiving and Christmas holidays, as countries are seeing surging caseloads and upticks in 2021 deaths compared to 2020.

Video Transcript

- All right. Now, let's turn our attention to some worrying news on the COVID 19 pandemic. COVID 19 has killed more people in 2021 than 2020, according to fresh stats from the CDC. Meanwhile, German Chancellor, Angela Merkel, is warning the latest surge in COVID 19 infections is worse than anything Germany has experienced so far. Yahoo Finance senior health care reporter, Anjalee Khemlani is here with the latest. Anjalee.

ANJALEE KHEMLANI: Thanks, Brian. Yeah, we've just found out from the CDC's numbers that, in fact, this year's death toll does surpass 2020. Of course, we know that the pandemic did just start last year. And the first, the earliest death we know were reported, was in February 2020. We know that, looking at the charts, the largest portion of deaths that the US has suffered came earlier this year in January, when we saw daily deaths surpassing 4,000 per day.

Right now, the total stands at more than 770,000 deaths in the US, as you mentioned, a majority of which are this year to date. And of course, we know there are still more weeks to go. This news, coming at a time, of course, as we start to see an uptick in cases around the country, something that is concerning experts, especially in light of an ongoing sort of stable vaccination rate among adults, at least, and looking to the winter months and what that might hold.

Meanwhile, across the globe, protests, especially in Europe, because of the restrictions that have been put in place. Germany in particular, this weekend, restricting the movement of unvaccinated individuals, specifically from crowded areas and the like. Chancellor Angela Merkel did say that these are restrictions that are going to need to be put in place because of, as you mentioned, the concerning spike that they are seeing. Meanwhile, the health minister with a stark warning, saying that most Germans will be, quote, "vaccinated, recovered, or dead by the end of winter." This, coming at a time where neighboring Austria is in lockdown. Back to you.

- Anjalee, just a quick follow up question here. What do we know about why we are seeing resurgences here? Is the vaccination rate not what it should be? Is it that we're seeing a lot of breakthrough cases? What's going on?

ANJALEE KHEMLANI: It is a combination. Vaccination rates, while higher in most European countries, just like in the US, there are pockets where they don't have a significant number of vaccinations. In the meantime, we are also seeing some breakthrough cases, reports around the severity ranging of what those breakthrough cases do look like. So it's a total combination of all of that right now, which is why health experts are so concerned about the coming months here in the US.

- Anjalee Khemlani, thanks so much.