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Even as the U.S. recorded more coronavirus deaths in one day than ever before – nearly 3,900 – on Wednesday, the mob attack on the U.S. Capitol lay bare some of the same political segments that sent prevention of the fight against the pandemic.
The virus is on the rise in almost every state, with California being particularly hardy.
Emergency deaths and illnesses in the state threaten to force hospitals to rationalize care and necessarily decide who lives and who dies.
“People gas for breath. People look like they’re drowning when they’re in bed right in front of us, ”said Dr Jeffrey Chien, an emergency room doctor at the Santa Clara Valley regional medical center.
He urged people to do their part to help reduce transmission. “I urge everyone to help us out because we are not the main line. We are the last line, ”he said.
Approximately 1.9 million people worldwide have died from coronavirus, more than 360,000 in the U.S. alone, by far the highest national death toll on Earth, and also the highest number of cases in the world, at more than 21m, according to the Johns Hopkins coronavirus research center.
December was still the deadliest month in America, and health experts warn that January could be even worse because of family gatherings and travel over the holidays, while administration the coronavirus vaccines approved so far for emergency use in the U.S. have fallen far short of the federal government’s own goals.
A new, more contagious version of the virus is spreading across the globe and the US.
Many pro-Trump protesters in Washington on Wednesday did not wear a face mask, despite initially gathering closely together at a rally with which the president spoke outside the House White and then in the corridors of the Congress after their attack on the Capitol.
Trump has long since reduced the virus and eliminated masks, and many of his strong supporters have followed his example.
“The domestic terrorists are overpowering Capitol police, just as the virus has managed to overwhelm Americans,” said Eric Topol, head of the Scripps Research Translation Institute.
He said: “The U.S. has lost control of a Trump-inspired mob and the Trump pandemic virus.”
Some of the forces contributing to Wednesday’s violent explosion were partially spotted by experts in global disease planning when they held a tabletop exercise in 2019, Eric Toner, a senior scholar at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security, who led the drill.
“We considered the potential for active disinfection and the use of pandemics for political gain,” Toner said. “Life was really worse.”
The uprising has been particularly horrific in California, which reported the second highest number of daily coronavirus deaths, with 459. The state also recorded more than a quarter of a million new cases weekly.
Only Arizona tops California in matters per resident.
Los Angeles county, the country’s largest population with 10 million residents, and nearly two dozen other counties have run out of intensive care unit beds.