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Just when the United States appears to be about to launch a Covid-19 vaccine, the numbers have become more pessimistic than ever: more than 3,000 American deaths in a single day, more than on D-Day or 9/11. One million new cases in the span of five days. More than 106,000 people in the hospital.
The crisis across the country is pushing medical facilities to the limit and leaving staff members and public health officials burned and plagued with tears and nightmares.
Lynne Sweet / AP
In this Nov. 24 photo, 10-year-old Kyla Harris writes a tribute to her grandmother Patsy Gilreath Moore, who died aged 79 from Covid-19, in a symbolic cemetery created to remember and honor the lives lost to the illness in the Liberty City neighborhood. of Miami.
In total, the crisis has left more than 290,000 people dead in the United States, with more than 15 million confirmed infections.
The United States recorded 3,124 deaths on Thursday (New Zealand time), the highest one-day total yet, according to Johns Hopkins University. Until last week, the peak was 2,603 deaths on April 15, when New York City was the epicenter of the outbreak in the nation.
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Thursday’s death toll eclipsed American deaths on the first day of the Normandy invasion during World War II: 2,500, out of about 4,400 Allied deaths. And it also surpassed the number of victims on September 11, 2001: 2,977.
New cases per day are at record highs of more than 209,000, according to the Johns Hopkins tally. And the number of people in the hospital with Covid-19 is setting records almost every day.
A U.S. government advisory panel met on Friday to decide whether to back the massive use of Pfizer’s Covid-19 vaccine to help beat the outbreak that has killed nearly 300,000 Americans.
The Food and Drug Administration’s meeting of outside advisers was the penultimate hurdle before the expected start of the largest vaccination campaign in US history.
Depending on how quickly the FDA approves the panel’s recommendation, the injections could begin in a few days.
Mark Lennihan / AP
The United States is preparing for a massive launch of Covid-19 vaccines.
In St. Louis, respiratory therapist Joe Kowalczyk said he has seen entire floors of his hospital filled with Covid-19 patients, some of them two in a room.
He said the supply of ventilators is dwindling and inventory is so tight that colleagues in one shift had to ventilate a patient using a BiPAP machine, similar to devices used to treat sleep apnea.
Twice during each of his graveyard turns, he checks all of the supply closets to make sure he knows how many fans are available.
When you go home to sleep during the day at the end of your exhausting shifts, you sometimes have nightmares.
PATRICK SEMANSKY / AP
US President Donald Trump has faced significant criticism for his handling of the coronavirus pandemic.
“I would be sleeping and I would be working in a unit and things would go completely wrong and I would wake up with a shock. They would be very visceral and very vivid, “he said.” It would really scare me. “
Thursday’s bleak numbers prompted the generally stoic health director for the nation’s most populous county to get excited.
Barbara Ferrer described “a devastating increase in deaths” in Los Angeles County, totaling 8,075 for the day.
“More than 8,000 people who were beloved members of their families will not return,” Ferrer said, fighting back tears.
Damian Dovarganes / AP
Barbara Ferrer, Los Angeles County Director of Public Health.
In New Orleans, the city’s health director, Dr. Jennifer Avegno, described a recent visit to a hospital where she observed doctors, nurses, respiratory therapists and others risking exposure to illness in a long and futile attempt. to save a dying patient from Covid-19. Some burst into tears afterward, he said.
“These are experienced emergency and intensive care personnel,” he said. “We don’t cry very often, and especially not some of us all at once.”
She cited “the sheer exhaustion of giving everything for similar patients over and over again over the past nine months, along with the knowledge that much of this could be prevented with really simple measures.”
In Virginia, Gov. Ralph Northam, a physician by training, announced a midnight curfew and expanded mask rules to require the use of face coverings outdoors, not just indoors.
Meanwhile, Ellen DeGeneres became one of the latest celebrities to be infected with the virus, though she said she “feels fine right now.” Production of their talk show has been suspended until January, and reruns will air in the meantime. .
AP National Writer Jocelyn Noveck in New York contributed to this report. Associated Press journalists from around the world contributed to this report.
