Coronavirus deaths in the United States exceeded 450,000 on Thursday, and daily deaths remain high at more than 3,000 per day, despite falling infections and the influx of several vaccines.
Infectious disease experts expect deaths to begin falling soon, after new cases peaked around the beginning of the year. New COVID-19 deaths could ebb as early as next week, the new director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said.
But there is also a risk that movements in disease and hospitals could be slowed down by people resting and getting together – this Sunday among them, to watch football, she said.
“I’m worried about Super Bowl Sunday, to be completely honest,” Dr. Rochelle Walensky said Thursday in an interview with the Associated Press (AP).
Walensky said one reason hospital cases are not rising as much as they did weeks ago is because the impact of holiday gatherings has waned.
The impact on deaths is delayed. The daily fee amounts to 50,000 new deaths in the last two weeks.
“We’re still in a very bad place,” she said.
The country reported 3,912 COVID-19 deaths Wednesday, down from the pandemic peak of 4,466 deaths on Jan. 12. California is the biggest driver to the U.S. death tax over the past month, which has seen more than 500 deaths daily in recent weeks.
Dora Padilla was among thousands of Californians who died last month.
The 86-year-old immigrant from Mexico served two decades as a school trustee for Southern Alhambra United School District after helping out as a parent volunteer and raising a band for her own children. She was one of the few Latinos in an elected position at the time.
She tested positive in December at the facility where she lived, then got a fever and saw her oxygen level drop. The facility was going to call an ambulance but decided to treat it there amid an increase in infections that filled local hospitals with virus patients, said her daughter Lisa Jones.
“They were just ready to call an ambulance, but they realized there was no place for it. She’s going to come to a hall somewhere, ”said Jones.
Padilla was stable for days and seemed to be getting better, but suddenly became ill again before she died.
“I’m still just a little rude,” said her daughter.
The California experience has mirrored many of the inequalities that have existed since the pandemic began nearly a year ago, with people of color particularly hard hit.
For example, Latinos make up 46% of California’s total death tax, despite being 39% of the state’s population. The situation has worsened in recent months. In November, the daily number of Latino deaths was 3.5 per 100,000 residents, but that rate burned up to 40 deaths per 100,000 last week.
Alabama is another hot spot. The average number of seven-day deaths has risen in the last two weeks, from 74 to 147 deaths per day. Kentucky, North Carolina, Oklahoma, South Carolina and Tennessee also saw deaths.
The hardest demographic groups are still the oldest and weakest, said Dr. Thomas Holland of Duke University.
When coronavirus was first swept through the country, it was based in nursing homes, prisons and other collection care settings. It spread more widely afterwards.
“But there have still been deaths among older patients and patients” with other health problems, Holland said. “Even as the pandemic has spread more widely in the population, the demographics of those who die from COVID have not changed significantly. ”
In Florida, for example, 83% of deaths due to the virus have been in people 65 and older.
However, that was not enough to encourage some people to wear masks. A recent viral video from Oakes Farms Seed to Table, a local grocery store in Naples, Florida, showed both unsuspecting customers and employees, chatting and laughing, with no social distance .
Alfie Oakes, the store’s owner, told NBC’s “Today” show that he knows masks don’t work, and that he doesn’t believe the coronavirus has killed hundreds of thousands of people in the United States.
“That’s total hogwash,” Oakes said, adding: “Why don’t we close the world because of the heart attacks? Why not lock up cities because of a heart attack? ”
He did not return a call from the AP on Thursday.
Public health experts are keeping a close eye on Florida this week, as the Super Bowl is played in Tampa. City and NFL leaders are trying to ensure social pace by limiting attendance at a third of the stadium’s capacity – 22,000 people. But still, there will be parties, events at bars and clubs, and other activities that bring people together.
While most people with the disease recover, others go a long way. It can take a week or two to get sick enough to end up in hospital. Then, those who are seriously ill may end up in an intensive care unit (ICU) for several weeks, and some may die.
“The patients who don’t do it very often for those long and stormy courses, and the patients who die, are usually weeks into their hospital,” Holland said.
Remedies have evolved for COVID-19 over time, but “no miracle-changing treatments” did not equate to the development of the vaccine, Holland said.
“We’ve had things that are helpful,” Holland said.
These include the use of steroids for patients in need of oxygen, various shower strategies and the prevention and management of blood clots. Monoclonal antibodies are also used for early outpatients of patients who do not need oxygen, but who may be at increased risk of complications.
In addition, changes in testing have helped.
“Clearly, if people know they are infected, they will be more likely to do the things they need to do, such as stay at home and quarantine or loneliness,” he said.
Looking ahead, the major concern is how the virus is evolving, moving into new strains that may be more infectious and more capable of avoiding antibody results or making vaccines so effective. .
“We were always in a race,” Holland said. “But it is much more clear now that we are in a race to vaccinate people fast enough to slow the spread, so that the virus has less chance of getting around and spreading. changing and creating those tension problems for us. ”