The United States recorded the highest daily death toll from COVID-19 – nearly 3,900 – on the same day as a peat attack on the Capitol showing some of the deep political divisions that have hampered the battle against pandemic.
Contagions are on the rise in several states and California is particularly severely affected: a record 1,042 coronavirus deaths in two days were reported on Thursday. The increase in deaths and infections threatens to force hospitals to ration care and, in essence, decide who should live and who should die.
“People are struggling to breathe. They look like they’re drowning when they’re in bed in front of us,” said Dr. Jeffrey Chien, a doctor in the emergency room at the Santa Clara Valley Regional Medical Center. “I beg everyone to help us because we’re not on the front line. We’re on the bottom line.”
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About 1.9 million people have died of coronavirus in the world, more than 360,000 of them in the United States. December was by far the month with the highest number of deaths in the country, and experts warn that January could be even worse due to family reunions and trips for the holiday season.
A new, more contagious variant of the virus is spreading around the world, as well as the United States. It remains to be seen, moreover, what effect the presence of thousands of supporters of President Donald Trump this week in Washington will have on public health, many of them without a mask.
Trump has downplayed the virus and despised masks, and many of his supporters are following his example. He has lashed out at his forties and urged protesters to object to restrictions in states like Michigan, where his armed supporters invaded the legislature a few months ago.
On Wednesday, when a horde of protesters stormed the Capitol to prevent certification of Joe Biden’s election victory, the United States recorded 3,865 coronavirus deaths, according to Johns Hopkins University. Figures can fluctuate drastically after holidays and weekends.
“Internal terrorists outnumbered Capitol police, just as the virus has outnumbered Americans,” said Dr. Eric Topol, head of the Scripps Translational Research Institute. “The United States lost control in the face of a Trump-incited mob and a Trump-minimized pandemic virus.”
Some forces that have contributed to the eruption of violence were partially predicted by global planning experts when they conducted a theoretical exercise in 2019, said Dr. Eric Toner, an academic from the Center for Health Security. UJH who led the exercise.
“We are considering the possibility of active misinformation and harnessing a pandemic to make political profit,” Toner noted. “Real life turned out to be a lot worse.”
In California, health authorities reported 583 new deaths on Thursday, a day after listing 459. The total death toll in California since the start of the pandemic is more than 28,000.
The state also recorded more than a quarter of a million new cases weekly, and Arizona alone surpasses California in cases per capita. Florida surpassed its highest number of cases in a single day with more than 19,800 and accumulated 22,400 deaths.
As of Thursday, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported that more than 5.3 million people in the United States had received their first dose of the COVID-19 vaccine, well below the northern million. Americans who will need it to stop the virus.