US COVID-19 Deaths Break Daily Record, Sparking Pleas to Cut Christmas

FILE PHOTO: A patient crosses a bridge connecting buildings within Mount Sinai Hospital during the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic in Manhattan in New York City, New York, USA, Dec. 3 2020. REUTERS / Mike Segar

WASHINGTON / NEW YORK – The daily death toll from COVID-19 in the US has surpassed 3,000 for the first time, prompting Americans to scale back Christmas plans even with vaccines about to gain regulatory approval.

Deaths from COVID-19 reached 3,253 on Wednesday, bringing the United States’ total since the start of the pandemic to 289,740. A record 106,219 people were hospitalized with the highly infectious disease, which threatens to overwhelm many healthcare systems.

Healthcare professionals and support staff, exhausted by the demands of the pandemic, have been watching patients die alone as millions of Americans refuse to follow medical advice to wear masks and avoid crowds and smaller gatherings to contain the spread of the virus.

In California’s San Joaquin Valley agricultural region, less than 2% of intensive care unit (ICU) beds remain unoccupied, the California Department of Public Health said Thursday.

The number of available ICU beds continued to decline across the most populous state in the U.S., with only 7.7% availability in the densely populated region of Southern California.

Nursing home residents and staff have also felt the burden.

“This is a pandemic that no one has ever experienced,” Stephen Hanse, president of the New York State Health Facilities Association and New York State Center for Assisted Living, told Reuters on Thursday.

The number of deaths in one day exceeded the number of lives lost in the attacks of September 11, 2001, underscoring the number of victims and the call for Americans to redouble their efforts.

“There are no Christmas parties. There is no safe Christmas party in this country right now, ”Dr. Michael Osterholm, a member of the COVID-19 advisory board of US President-elect Joe Biden, told CNN on Thursday.

“It won’t end after that, but that’s the period right now where we could have wave upon wave upon wave,” Osterholm said.

More than half of the states in the US have recently introduced or resumed restrictions in an attempt to curb the rampant spread of the virus.

On Thursday, Virginia Governor Ralph Northam imposed a curfew from midnight to 5 a.m., among other measures that go into effect Monday and last until at least January 31.

“The number of cases has been increasing for weeks, now it is higher than ever during this entire pandemic, Northam said at a news conference.

Providing a ray of hope, a vaccine could begin reaching healthcare workers, first responders and nursing home residents within days in what Hanse called “light at the end of the tunnel.”

A panel of independent medical experts was due to decide later on Thursday whether to recommend that the US Food and Drug Administration authorize the emergency use of a vaccine from Pfizer Inc and German partner BioNTech SE.

FDA consent could come on Friday or Saturday, followed by the first American injections on Sunday or Monday, Moncef Slaoui, senior adviser to the Trump administration’s Operation Warp Speed ​​vaccine development program, told Fox News.

A second vaccine developed by Moderna Inc will be reviewed by the advisory panel next week.

Biden, who succeeds President Donald Trump on January 20, has set a goal of vaccinating 100 million people in the first 100 days of his administration.

Meanwhile, like California, ICUs at hundreds of hospitals across the country were at or near capacity, data from the US Department of Health and Human Services showed.

California reported just under 30,000 new COVID-19 cases and 220 deaths on Wednesday, bringing the total deaths there to 20,463.

The pandemic has also forced millions out of work, as state and local officials place restrictions on social and economic life to contain the outbreak.

Meanwhile, Congress has struggled to end a months-long stalemate on economic aid.

Disagreements remain over corporate liability protections demanded by Republicans and aid to state and local governments, whose budgets have skyrocketed by the pandemic, requested by Democrats before a final deal on pandemic assistance is reached.

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