More than 400,000 people in the United States who had the coronavirus died on Tuesday, the anniversary of the country’s first known death in the pandemic, according to the New York Times.
The pace at which Americans died accelerated through the fall and winter, and exploded to record levels in January. For several weeks of this month, the average daily deaths exceeded 3,300, more than in the September 11th terrorist attacks. Tuesday’s harrowing milestone came a day after the U.S. topped a total of 24 million cases.
The deadliest day of the pandemic to date was January 12, when more than 4,400 deaths were reported. Unlike the early days of the outbreak in the United States, which was concentrated in a handful of large, mostly northeastern cities, this surge is widespread. As of Monday, Arizona, California, South Carolina, New York, and Oklahoma had reported the most new cases per capita in the past week. Much of the recent surge has been attributed to people who gathered over the holidays, from Thanksgiving to New Years Eve.
The time it took to log 100,000 deaths at a time has decreased dramatically since the country’s first known Covid-19 death, which occurred in Santa Clara County, California, on February 6, 2020. The first 100,000 deaths in the US were confirmed by May 27; It then took four months for the nation to record another 100,000 deaths. the next about three months; Five weeks at the latest.
Public health experts don’t expect death rates to peak until the end of the month. The death toll could reach 500,000 by the end of February, a number that would have been unthinkable a year ago. Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, the country’s foremost infectious disease expert, estimated in March last year that as many as 240,000 Americans could lose their lives, an enormous number that is still far below reality.
The United States has had more virus deaths than any other country in the world. In total, New York alone has more than 40,000 known people
Deaths. In total, more than two million people have died from the virus worldwide, a number that almost certainly undercounts.
According to many experts, the blame for the enormous loss of American life lies in a failure of leadership by President Trump, whose administration politicized the use of masks and left states to implement a patchwork of inconsistent measures that did not bring the virus under control.
“It wasn’t that he was simply incapable,” said Jeffrey Shaman, professor of environmental health science at Columbia University who modeled the virus’s spread. “He made something that could very easily have become a point of patriotism, pride, and national unity – protecting your neighbors, protecting your loved ones, protecting your community – as he is used to and has cost people’s lives. ”
For comparison, Vietnam, a nation of 97 million people, has only confirmed 35 virus-related deaths, added Dr. Shaman added.
President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr., due to be inaugurated on Wednesday, has called for an aggressive national strategy to fight the virus, including increasing the availability of Covid-19 vaccines, despite not signing up to a state mask mandate .
“You have my word that we will make the hell out of this operation,” said Mr Biden on Friday, noting the disproportionately fatal consequences of the virus for black, Latin American and Indigenous Americans. “Our administration will run with science and scientists.”
With the virus spread everywhere for so many months, hospitals have become overburdened. In rural areas, doctors were at times unable to bring seriously ill patients to larger medical centers for more sophisticated treatment.
As of Monday, the 7-day average of cases in the United States was 200,000 per day, although it has been falling for the past few weeks. Hospital stays have finally started to settle down too, reaching their lowest level since January 2nd on Sunday. In the Midwest, which was hit by its worst fall in the fall, case numbers have fallen sharply in recent weeks, but that progress appears to be slowing.
However, new variants of the virus, some of which make it more transmissible, could soon spread everywhere and threaten to increase infections again.
“There is no clear end in sight in the near future,” said Ira M. Longini Jr., professor of biostatistics at the University of Florida.
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