The United States recorded over 3 000 deaths from coronavirus on Wednesday – a new record – as the country’s Centres for Disease Control forecasts that the national death toll could increase by up to 70 000 by January 2. This as an independent panel of the Food and Drug Administration meets today to vote on whether to recommend approval for emergency use authorisation of the Pfizer vaccine, which has already received approvals in the UK, Canada and Saudi Arabia.
The number of American’s hospitalised for COVID-19 reached over 106 000 on Wednesday, just as the country is beginning to see a new surge as a result of Thanksgiving gatherings in late November.
In total, 3053 deaths were recorded on Wednesday – more than the people who perished during the September 9/11 tragedy. Over 16 000 people died over the last seven days, the equivalent of 29 of the world’s largest passenger aircraft crashing in one week with no survivors.
“It’s difficult right now for the likes of the CDC (US Centres for Disease Control and Prevention) in Atlanta. The US is accounting for a third of world cases at the moment over the last number of weeks. The epidemic in the US is punishing. It’s widespread. It’s quite frankly shocking to see one to two persons a minute die in the US, a country with a wonderful, strong health system, amazing technological capacities,” says Dr Mike Ryan of the World Health Organisation (WHO).
And while the FDA could return approval for the Pfizer vaccine as early as today with the first vaccines administered in the days ahead, its impact on the current surge will be negligible – just as the case and death lag from Thanksgiving gatherings crash into Christmas.
“So you have a surge upon a surge. And then before you can handle that, more people are going to travel over Christmas. They’re going to have more of those family and friends gatherings that you accurately said are an issue. So if those two things happen and we don’t mitigate well, we don’t listen to the public health measures that we need to follow, that we could start to see things really get bad in the middle of January,” Dr Anthony Fauci, the Director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, says.
“So I think not only for New York State but for any state or city that is facing similar problems without substantial mitigation, the middle of January can be a really dark time for us,” he adds.
As hospital systems across the country buckle under the sheer breadth of the pandemic, with reports that regions serving some 100 million Americans have fewer than 15% of ICU beds available or worse – with frontlines health workers bearing the brunt.
“We’re understaffed. We have so much on our plates as nurses, there’s not enough of us to help. We have, I think they said ten COVID units. And one of those is just a place for people to go and pass away, unfortunately. Please take it seriously. Wear your mask. And I hope I don’t see you here,” says Lacie Gooch, a COVID ICU nurse in Omaha, Nebraska.
US hospitals buckle under surge of new coronavirus cases:
The incoming administration of President-elect Joe Biden is placing its response to the pandemic front and centre.
“Masking. Vaccinations. Opening schools. These are three key goals for my first 100 days. Mask up for one hundred days once we take office, one hundred days to make a difference. It’s not a political statement. It’s a patriotic act. It won’t be the end of our efforts, but it’s a necessary and easy beginning, an easy start,” the President-elect has told Americans.
Over 290 000 people have perished from the virus in the United States. Add to that the latest economic data that shows that more than 853 000 Americans filed first-time claims for unemployment in the last week as the third wave of this pandemic puts the breaks on the little momentum the economy was able to achieve in the third quarter of the year. The country’s latest jobs report released last Friday shows hiring slowed sharply in the restaurant and retail sectors.
