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Deadliest day ever in US sets alarming trend
The United States on Wednesday recorded its deadliest day, with more than 2,800 people losing their lives to the coronavirus disease (Covid-19), surpassing the previous record set on April 21.
The United States on Wednesday recorded its deadliest day, with more than 2,800 people losing their lives to the coronavirus disease (Covid-19), surpassing the previous record set on April 21. This is by far the highest number of single-day deaths recorded anywhere in the world, as the outbreak spirals out of control in the world’s worst-hit nation right before the start of the holiday season. Hospitalisations, meanwhile, surpassed 100,000 for the first time and nearly 20,000 people are in critical condition in the country, both record levels, highlighting how the situation is still far from getting better.
1) Most deaths in a day, and getting worse
On Wednesday, 2,833 people died due to Covid-19, surpassing the previous record set on April 21 when the US was dealing with its first wave of infections, according to Worldometers (New York Times put the figure at 2,760). Wednesday’s deaths raise the overall toll in the US to 279,867 since the pandemic started late last year. The seven-day average of daily deaths in the country touched 1,659 on Wednesday, much lower than the peak of 2,243 recorded on April 21.
But the alarming rate at which the number of deaths is currently rising suggests that the current wave may surpass the April peak, experts said. This is of course, not taking into account the delayed effects of Thanksgiving kicking in (generally, deaths surge after an around two-week gap from when cases rise). With Americans now preparing to celebrate Christmas and New Year, experts and scientists fear the worst is yet to come.
2) Latest surge pushes deaths across the country
During the first wave of the outbreak in April, New York and New England bore the brunt in terms of cases as well as deaths. In the third wave, however, the situation is drastically different. Though deaths are still heavily concentrated in the country’s north-east with New York recording the most deaths (34,718), states such as Texas (22,335), California (19,410) and Florida (18,776) have now also become the regions that have seen the most fatalities, according to Johns Hopkins University.
According to a forecast by the University of Massachusetts Amherst’s Reich Lab, the Rust Belt states (Pennsylvania, Ohio, West Virginia, Kentucky, Indiana and Michigan), along with New York and California are likely to drive up the pace of Covid-19 deaths in the coming weeks.
3) Hospitalisations and ICU admissions at record high
As of Wednesday, 100,266 Covid-19 patients in the country were hospitalised –the first time on record that hospitalisations in the US surpassed 100,000 and more than double the number at the start of November. Of these, 19,396 patients were in Intensive Care Units, according to the Covid Tracking Project. Both these numbers are the highest ever recorded in the country and are rising fast, which means that daily deaths may not be dropping anytime soon.
Hospitalisations increased by more than 1,000 a day at the end of November, data released by the Department of Health and Human Services show. California recorded a 38% surge between November 23 and December 1, with 8,171 Covid-19 patients as of Tuesday. Arizona’s Covid-19 inpatients jumped 28% to 2,479 in the same period.
4) By far the worst-hit country in the world
The US became the world’s largest Covid-19 epicentre in late March and early April. In the eight months since, the US has largely remained the country reporting the most new deaths in the world. Only two countries — Brazil and India — have briefly overtaken America’s daily death rate. Brazil did so from June 4 to July 28 when the first wave ended in the US and the second wave was yet to start.
India replaced the US as the world’s biggest epicentre for daily deaths for around two months between August 27 and October 20 – in this period, the Indian wave was at its peak and the third wave in the US was yet to kick off. Barring these two periods, the US has remained the world’s hit country by a massive margin. In the last week, for instance, America has reported more than twice the number of deaths in the next closest country, Italy.
